


Defragmentation

by Katreal



Series: Memory Not Found: Shatterstuck [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aspect Exploration, Bad Puns, Brain Ghosts, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Cat Puns, Cross-timeline Found Family, Dealing with Bro's Shit, Deviates from Collide, Dirk Strider's C++ Parenting, Dirk Strider's Issues, F/F, F/M, Game Breaking Glitches, Gen, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Moirail OTP, Multichapter, Not Epilogue Compliant, POV Second Person, Pesterlog(s) (Homestuck), Platonic Relationships, Remixed Sburb Session, Self-Hatred, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Unreliable Narrator, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2019-08-29 11:08:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 57
Words: 204,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16742854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katreal/pseuds/Katreal
Summary: A gamebreaking glitch tore the game session to shreds, right before they reached the end. Dirk Strider was already dead at the time. Temporarily. Which left him to revive in the aftermath. As the Prince of Heart, he doesn't have much experience putting souls back together, only breaking them, but at this point he seems to be the only one who even knows shit is broken.He's the last person who'd trust himself with this. Not when he's out of time, out of place, and over his head being responsible for a little brother and a life his splinterself already, thoroughly fucked up.





	1. [A1] Dirk > Quietly Freak the Fuck Out

**Author's Note:**

> Follows Divided by Zero almost immediately, though you don't necessarily need to read it. Just know that things got eff'd up, and the game crashed completely.
> 
> Not Acknowledging the Epilogues in Any Way.
> 
> Current Update Schedule: Tuesdays and Fridays

Everything is in pieces. But that’s nothing new. You are a Prince of Heart. Splinters are your life. You _make_ splinters. You may have only recently learned how to harness your Princely powers to tear out _other_ people’s souls, but you’ve always had a knack for tearing your own to shreds, even when you weren’t trying.

These splinters don’t resonate in that same way, don’t camp themselves into a corner of your mind and _exist,_ thrumming along with your heartbeat in a constant reminder. These are all just a chaotic mess of sharp edges and broken glass, scattered across a dark void you are pretty sure isn’t the medium, or even the Furthest Ring. It feels…

Empty, aside from the glimmer of a thousand dead stars dancing at your fingertips.

Your name is Dirk Strider and you’re pretty sure you were dead a moment ago. Maybe you are dead for good, even with the revolving door that ascending to god-tier opens up. Before that agonizing moment of force ramming through you, you just remember staring at Dave’s face, his hands as they clenched against the bone white hilt of his sword, willing him to just go ahead and take the shot. You’ve lost your head purposefully before, because getting into the game would save all your friends lives. Even this right now would be an even better reason because ridding the world of these two splinters of Jack Noir would increase the odds of everyone else surviving and you are okay with that.

And then. The tolling, a terrible tolling of a clock, ringing louder and louder and louder until everything just...stopped,  the gears coming to a screeching end and shattering across the universe and birthing the plane of nothingness you now inhabit.

It was a very strange sensation. Not unlike when you first woke up on Derse all those years ago. Floating in a limbo, unable to see anything through bleary eyes that didn’t quite know how to process the medium before the medium existed. While you’d never reached Roxy’s levels of dream-walking, it had taken several of these muddled half-nightmares, and Calliope’s cheerful explanations before you’d woken enough to start your scheming.

Your new status as the Prince of Heart though, that changed things. You couldn’t be dreaming because your dreamself is dead. That’s how you earned these god-tier puffy asshole pants in the first place. Taken your place in the pantheon and cast off your mortal coil or some shit. Not that it had mattered, it hadn’t smoothed down the sharp edges from where you’d broken bits off of your soul to create your auto-responder nearly three years ago. It just made the loss all the more noticeable.

You can’t find him. Or Arquiusprite, as he’d finally settled into after you’d fulfilled your promise. He’d always burned in that corner of your mind, laughing at you. A reminder of your hubris, of failings, a dark mirror that twisted and churned in your stomach as it threw back everything you hated about yourself. But it was gone. It almost hurt to feel so empty.

Was this where players went when they died? You don’t _remember_ it being full of sharp, broken edges, glinting in the darkness of the furthest ring. More like...pockets of space, surrounded by an eerie murmuring that had resonated in your bones the entire flight back.

You recalled waking up there once, after being knocked out twice in both your waking and dreaming selves, watching Jake beat up some weird aquatic punk ghost. You’d been a passively observing brain ghost lodged in your boyfriend-to-be’s brain and then suddenly completely embodied, your head splitting as memories from your two (and a phantom) selves tried to squeeze themselves into a single span of time. It made that time pretty blurry though, in recollection. You’d just had way too much crap going on what with trying to make sure none of your friends died completely before you managed to get inside the game, and you hadn’t just been able to slip back out of your dreamself into the waking world like you normally would considering the lights weren’t on at home...

You don’t think you feel dead. Did _anyone_ feel dead? You needed to get back to Dave and the others if you could at all. Had his gambit worked? Did Dave manage to take out both Jacks? And what about Roxy and the Batterwitch? Or Jake and his solo mission? You _hated_ being out of the loop, what if something happened to your friends while you were trapped in this place?

Frustrated, you brush mental fingers against the edge of one of the shards surrounding you, searching for something, anything, that would tell you what happened here. Some of them felt utterly alien. Incomprehensible nonsense. Like looking at a program written in a language you didn’t have the syntax for. You keep looking, sifting through the debris field. Mixed in with the alien logic were the occasional glimpses, flashes. Not yours, but close enough that you could feel it resonate with your soul, plucking at that sense of self with a quiet _here! I’m here!_

That familiar-but-not-quite shard led to another, one held on by nothing more than a spider-thin strand of silk. Nothing more than a splinter of a memory, but it felt like _you_. An anchor. It’s--just like Derse. Like before the game, as your mind slipped from one world to the next.

You let your awareness slide along the edge of your broken soul, coasting the jagged pieces like how you’d always imagined your bro had done, tearing up a rail on a shitty artifacted skateboard. Weight and solidity settled around you like a well worn coat, you unconsciously wrapped yourself in it--and _breathed._

...And then fell over hacking. You stumble forward, something hard and sharp catching and digging into your stomach. Countertop? Felt like it. But your eyes were watering as that same something in the air burned at them. A dull roar builds in your ears as you focus on dragging air into lungs you’d forgotten you had--you haven’t needed to breathe since you’d gotten yourself killed on your quest bed. Was that really only a _day_ ago? It felt like _eons,_ getting slapped beyond the incipisphere and then flying and Dave and Jack and _dying--_

If nothing else, the burning in your lungs, the counter digging into palms. It all whispered that this was _real_ . If you were dead, if this was just a shred of memory, would you be hunched over what your blurry vision could only call a sink, hacking up a lung like you’d gone exploring the Land of Tombs and Krypton without your mask? You _lived_ on that planet with it’s thick gasses and poison filled atmosphere for half a year, this acrid soupy air and oppressive heat should be _nothing_.

Eyes watering behind your shades, you fumble for the faucet--at least you _think_ it’s a faucet. This feels like your apartment and you roll with it, the shape of the nozzle is the same under your hand as it’s been for the last sixteen years. You push your shades up into your hair--they bump into something already there, knocking it off your head--burying your face in hands cupping lukewarm water, and just try to breathe. The water, while never as cold as you wanted, worked to ease the prickle in your eyes. The water sloshed to the dirty metal sink-- _no that was wrong you kept it spotless because what else did you have to do for half a year there were only so many tombs to explore--_ and you grabbed another handful, this time it slid down your throat. Carefully, oh so carefully. With the way your lungs were protesting it would be far too easy for the liquid to end up somewhere it shouldn’t and you didn’t know if the game simulated pneumonia but you wouldn’t put it past it.

“B-bro?”

A tiny, quivering voice had you jerking your head up. The sky outside the window above the sink was blood red over a wide expanse of slate grey and glass, not the poison green and black of your planet, or even the endless blue of your home. You turn stiffly, water running in rivulets down your face and caught in your eyelashes as you try to blink the burning grit away.

And then you look down, into a small face that was torn between all too familiar indifference and cracked with something else. Small pale hands clutched an orange baseball cap, holding it out hesitantly.

You…can’t deal with this right now. Your burning lungs. Your irritated eyes. The screaming in your woefully inefficient meatbag brain that knew this was _wrong wrong wrong._

Your mind blanks out. Full on fucking blue screen of death’d that shit. You feel your hands take the cap, and some part of your brain that sounds suspiciously like Hal notes with satisfaction  that your voice doesn’t waver at all, although it sounds wrong to your ears. “Thanks Dave.”

The too young Dave Strider manages a too-cool-to-actually-be-cool nod and absconds out of the kitchen, slamming the door to a room-- _his room?--_ behind him.

Gravity is a constant battle, and your too shocked limbs aren’t even trying to put on a show, so you let yourself sink to the floor, stained cabinet to your back. But you don’t stop there, sliding away from the body and back into the welcoming darkness of the void, surrounded by the remnants of tiny stars and clutch at your puffy asshole god-tier pants like they were a lifeline because of what they represent. What the fuck. What the fuck, man.

_Are you dead???_

A tiny star burns in the previously empty corner of your mind and all you can smell is that burning, pollution filled entirely _not flooded_ Houston air. If you try you know you could slip right back into that body because that’s what you did for years. Only that body is not fucking yours.

You are dimly aware of your--his--shades clattering to the linoleum floor, like it’s a distant dream and you only need to open your eyes to wake up.  You squeeze them shut, your palms forcing your _real_ shades into your face and very quietly, you take a moment to freak the fuck out.


	2. Dirk > Focus on Something Else

Time passes. You have no idea how much. You can still fly, wherever you are, and you take advantage of it. You put as much distance between yourself and what just happened. 

But no matter how far you go, a tiny star continues to glimmer. Locked in the back of your mind. Every now and then you get a whiff of the air from  _ that _ place and it makes your throat seize up, before you pointedly tell yourself that you  _ can’t _ breathe right now even if you wanted to.

There’s no light to travel by, so you just follow your gut, knifing through the void and ignoring the miniaturized galaxies worth of shards you are leaving behind. You are wary of touching another after what happened last time, although none of these resonate with you quite like  _ that _ one did. Occasionally you’ll skim an edge and maybe hear something, like the shout of an old friend trying to flag you down as you pass…

You stopped, the first few times. In case someone had managed to find you. In case you’d just been flung so far out beyond the incipisphere and your friends were all looking for you. In case that really had been a dream bubble you saw... But the battery acid stink taunting you shoots down that hypothesis with surprising vengeance, and you reluctantly keep moving.

It was so dark. So quiet. A land void of the horrorterrors that had once reigned over what you can only guess is beyond the Furthest Ring. You have to still be in the game if you are all god-tier up in this shit, and only the Furthest Ring can’t see Skaia’s light. That has to be it. It’s just...strange that it’s so quiet. And taking so long. Even when you’d been teleported away by Jake’s mind-controlled grandma, you’d been able to see specks from skaia on the horizon, and feel the thrum of space and time as it roiled around you. This was just…

Well. Aside from the splinters everywhere, which at least echoed with  _ something, _ this entire place felt inert. Completely void of even the denizens _of_ the void. You carefully skirt another shard that emitting a vaguely repelling heat. If you squint at it, you get the vaguest impression of an ocean, but one that was entirely the wrong color. This was one of those close-but-not enough cases. You can feel it reaching out, inviting, but you flinch away, leaving it to it’s slow orbit amongst the rest of the stars. 

If your hunch was right, and all this debris was some sort of shrapnel left behind by an explosion, then you should probably be looking for the center of it all. You’ve been cataloging the placement of the clusters during your flight, and they did seem reminiscent of a blast pattern, within normal variations, and if so that meant he could calculate the--you feel something twist painfully in your gut, and the emptiness ringing in your ears mocks you.

Right. The...center. Right. You didn’t need advanced processors or artificial superiority to observe and deduce the direction to the epicenter. Your meatbag brain would have to do. You still know how to code.

It... wasn’t hard to get it within a reasonable margin of error. But it took a long time. Longer than it should have taken. Red text should be forcing open the pesterchum window in the shades, taunting you about how it’d been done in 1/10th the time but he just wanted to give you a sporting shot since you seemed to be having fun exercising your inefficient resources.

Nothing. Pesterchum stays dark as you close the script you’d been using to crunch the numbers. You hesitate--you’ve been avoiding this because the signal likely wouldn’t be able to reach anyway--but with a quick thought, like ripping off a bandaid, you pull up your friendslist.

It’s gone.

They are all gone. 

Usernames. Conversations. Files sent and received. All wiped clean as if the program was newly installed.

timaeusTestified stands alone on a list that had once held your best friends. Even out of range you should still have that shit saved locally.

Your jaw spasms from how hard you’ve been clenching it and you force yourself to take a deep breath. Which was utterly useless considering you are in  _ space _ , but the familiar motion helped steady yourself.

With steely determination you exit the program entirely, and pulled the script you’d just finished coding into the viewport and execute it, a red arrow begins blinking in the corner of your vision, pointing you in the direction of the epicenter.

It was the only clue you had, aside from the city of steel and glass and you weren’t yet ready to face that.

Ready or not, the thought summoned a slightly less oppressive but still far too soupy heat, the faintest mirage of deep shadows creeping across the linoleum beyond grey shoes. Your head begins to ache as you straddle two bodies doing two very different things. One flying unerringly through space, the other slumped in a pathetic heap on a kitchen floor. The indignity of it all wrankles at your pride, and you try your best to shove the thought away. You don’t care. You don’t need it. You just need to focus on the explosion and you’ll figure out what the fuck happened and get back to Jake and Jane and Roxy and Dave--

Your ears are too sharp for your own good, and the room swims back into view. You catch the sound of a door being cracked. Of hesitant footsteps. The shadows at the end of the room paradoxically deepen as the hallway light is cracked on, and a too damn small body cautiously peeks around the door-frame, only to freeze like a deer in the headlights.

“B-bro? Hey Bro. You alive in there?”

You shove it away. 

Finding the epicenter  _ and your friends  _ was the priority. If this splinter couldn’t take care of itself that just made it even more useless than the brain ghost that ended up inside Jake’s brain. It’d obviously existed long before Dirk ever ended up in this place, it could do it’s own damn work.

_ It’s own damn work is what fucked Dave up in the first place. _

The retreating shadows stopped abruptly at that thought. The room lingered around him. Hazy and indistinct, but still undeniably there. He had more than half a metaphorical foot out the door, but something in him hesitated.

“Bro this is seriously--am I going to have to call the hospital? You are seriously wigging me out here. All I wanted was to see if there is something other than your shitty swords in the goddamn fridge because I haven’t eaten in twelve hours, and I come out here to find you still sitting there like this?? You look like someone just up and snip, cut your threads. Oh no, poor broken puppet, better just leave it there--”

He’s in the room now. You can see the moonlight filtering in through the window, bleaching him pale as a sheet. His body language is jittery, you notice in an odd state of detached amazement. You can see him trying so very hard to work up the courage to reach out and touch you on the shoulder. And he finally does and shakes you. Shakes you so hard you can feel his fingers digging into your shoulder. Your real shoulder. Covered in totally uncool red heart-patterned tee-shirts and hoods and pink headbands. Not the one in white that was far too large.

“Bro--please--this isn’t funny. What am I supposed to do if you up and die on me, asshole? Huh? I-- _ fuck--Please.” _

“ _ Language.”  _ Your voice comes out raspy, and it startles you. You hadn’t intended to speak.

_ “The hell do you care?”  _ He flinches but doesn’t release your shoulder. 

“ _ You’re like. 6.” _

“I’m almost 10, and that shouldn’t even matter because I’m the one acting like the adult right now! Do you really think checking out of life for a day or whatever is gonna just...make whatever this is go away?”

That snaps you completely out of your flight and onto the cold linoleum tile. Your hands reflexively tighten into fists and you shove them into your face, groaning. The small hand flinches and releases your white tee-shirt, and you can hear him scrambling back a good safe distance. Out of range for any retaliation or surprise strifes. Your limbs tingle as you move them, the lack of motion for--had it really been twelve hours?--so long had let them fall asleep.

The pressure against your eyes helped. A little. “ _ fuck.” _

“Are you alive or not.”

“I--” Damn it. Even your voice sounded wrong. “Yes.”

“Good.” The vehemence behind in that single word hit you with the weight of a full on strife. You raise your head, as the door creaks and light spills across the room in a concentrated yellow shaft. He isn’t looking at you. He’s mostly blocked by the refrigerator door, but even in this light you can see his fingers trembling against the white appliance, “If you aren’t dying then just--go to bed or something. Don’t go acting all weird, it’s making me nervous. That blank stare isn’t helping you know, tap dancing all across my nerves like it’s a glass of water and the T-Rex is coming. I know dinosaurs are supposed to be the hotshit right now, but I’d rather be a penguin. You know. Cool. I’m cool. You’re cool. And tomorrow we’ll be cool as a penguin getting its moves on to impress all the girl penguins. Make all the other penguins jealous. And if that means you need to go to a doctor penguin, what the hell am I saying just go to the goddamn doctor and we’ll never speak of this again.” 

He doesn’t have his shades on as he closes the door, bottle of golden juice in hand, but you can’t see more than a glitter of red in the dark. He doesn’t look at you. He marches stiffly into the hallway, and then you can hear the sudden shift in footsteps as soon as he’s out of your line of sight, booking it down the hall and behind the dubious sanctity of his bedroom door like he thought you were going to chase him down like the raiders from hell.

Another you might have. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say I've been writing whups. Don't get used to this pace I'm just on a roooooll.
> 
> Which honestly I blame those of you who commented! Engagement apparently kicks my muse into high gear.


	3. Dirk > Pull Yourself Together

Listening for the telltale creak of the door that would herald Dave returning, you hesitate. Nothing. Just a dull buzz from outside--city noises, you think. You doubt cities are every quiet. Once you are fairly sure you are alone, you push yourself to your feet, joints and muscles aching from being in the same position for too long. Everything felt off. Too big. Too tall. Too heavy. Especially after being all weightless and shit out in space. You pull away from this reality enough to check on yourself--not enough that you’d lose track of this body this time--and yep you are just floating there in the middle of the void like an idiot right now, Hal wouldn’t let you hear the end of it. At least there was literally nothing out there, so you deem it safe enough to leave your gameself there for the moment.

Your pounding heart echoes in your ears. You cover them as if that would help, but the pulse continued as the adrenaline worked to run its course. 

Dream or not, you couldn’t believe how stupid this was. You were. Are. For even ending up in this situation. This couldn’t be real. It  _ couldn’t be. _ You were so  _ sure  _ of it. This strange land of acrid air and noise and impossibilities was obviously just a distraction. 

You should fucking know better. You should fucking  _ know _ that just because something was an alternate, didn’t mean it wasn’t  _ real.  _ You thought you’d seen everything this fucking game could throw at you and it couldn’t get any more illogical.

Real or not, Dave didn’t deserve this shit. Just fucking think about how this situation looked to him. This wasn’t like the auto-responder or the bots, who knew full well you had a tendency to get lost in your own damn head. Or who knew about the game-world and that you were just off information gathering. That was one of the reasons you’d fucking _made_ Hal in the first place, so he could field your friend’s questions while you were spacing out like a _narcoleptic_ _zombie._

You needed--needed to get out of this room. The Kitchenette was a wide open space, part of the living room. This was your apartment, more or less. You knew the layout. If Dave had gone that way, and the kitchenette was here, that means he was in your old room. The roof? No. No ocean. No gulls. Only glass and metal and the thrum of a world that hadn’t yet died. 

You needed somewhere small. Quiet. An escape.

The bathroom. You lock yourself inside, the fan whirring to life as you automatically flick on the light. It’s a familiar noise, even if it doesn’t yet have the distinctive rattle you’d grown accustomed to as the hardware aged. A stranger looked back at you from the mirror over the sink.

You half-expected this, but it still felt jarring. It’s you. Even without your shades the face was undeniably yours. Same orange eyes. Same thin blank expression that hovered between apathy and aloofness even as you are trying to fight off a double decker bus full of adrenaline and panic. The same unnatural gravity defying sweep in your white-blonde hair, although it was oddly ruffled. From the--hat. Yeah. You’d had a hat earlier. Was that still on the floor? With your--his--shades?

This body definitely aren’t sixteen anymore. Not by a long shot. Too big too old this was you but it wasn’t you but it’s you know what the hell are you going to do--

_ Crrrck. _

You look towards the source of the sound. Blinking owlishly when you realize you were gripping the edge of the sink with a white-knuckled grip. It’d cracked. You force your hands away and stuff them into the pocket of your pants and sit down on the porcelain throne. At least you were out of sight of the mirror now.

You resist the urge to flee again, back to the darkness and the void and your missing friends. It’s very much a problem. Your  _ friends are missing.  _ But this. All this is a  _ problem too. _ Dave is here. Dave is  _ ten. _ And you are something closer to thirty than not probably. Dumped in the middle of your ecto-son’s life as your borderline-sociopathic splinterself. 

One that you’d been ranted at about. In fairly heavy detail, as that ecto-son had to deal with getting closure for trauma  _ he was living through right now. _

_ “Do you really think checking out of life for a day or whatever is gonna just...make it go away?” _

“What am I going to do Hal?” You mutter aloud, although you know your robotic, yet still probably sociopathic splinterself isn’t here either. Two for two on the lower end of the empathy scale, the evidence is mounting. Who's to say you’d be any better at it? “I’m just going to screw this up. I already did.”

If it’s real and you leave? You’d be abandoning your  _ ten year old bro.  _

Ten years. Given the way Dave had bolted after both their encounters, it was ten years too late to prevent the damage.

Okay. New Plan. You grit your teeth and stand up, methodically going through the motions of washing your hands and then drying them on the threadbare towel just to give you something to fidget with. You can’t just ignore...all of this. Your Dave or not, the kid didn’t deserve it. You need to go over what you remember of that conversation and see what you can fix, and maybe try to blunt what you can’t. This body and this… situation obviously isn’t a one time thing. It isn’t going away. You’d left that splinter star behind, but this...other self had slotted itself in the place your wakingself had been, before you know, the world was destroyed.

Just...like before the game. You could do this. You got the hang of juggling two lives fairly easily no matter how much your auto-responder liked to needle you. One foot in reality, and one in the game and this would  _ work _ . 

You slip a little, letting the darkness of space overlay the grimy wallpaper, and set your--you can’t help but think of it as your true self, all wiry sixteen years of god-tier cosplay--course for the center, cracking your awareness the slightest bit and anchoring there, keeping an eye out for obstacles or anything unusual. It’s been half a year since your dreamself died, but this balancing act felt as natural to you as breathing. Even the headache you could feel building felt more like...stretching a muscle you hadn’t needed to use for a while.

You ease your attention back to the apartment, but not entirely. The speed of the flight has ghostly sensations of motion wisping across your skin, but you’ll get used to it. It would be easy enough to just let yourself splinter again and be done with it, but there have been far too many Dirk Striders already. 

Obviously something happened. He was here. Dave was here. What about Jane and Jake and Roxy and the other kids? If this wasn’t a memory or a dream, a  _ new _ version of Earth, wouldn’t they be here? You wish you’d had more time to sit down and talk to Dave and his friends without the threat of the whole blasted universe threatening to fall to pieces on your heads.

You latch onto that stray thought. Turning it over in your mind as you make your way back out into the living room. Chewing on it, you give the room a cursory once over in the splashlight and the moon from the windows on the far wall, making every metallic object gleam it touched gleam tantalizingly. It was like you were looking in the mirror again. You can see  _ you _ in every single thing, from the marionettes to the sound samplers to the myriad selection of shitty game systems and even more trashfire games. Even the bare-rumped plush puppets were oddly fascinating by the peekaboo light of the moon, and struck you as something you’d find hilarious if you were in on the joke. 

All you had was what your Bro left for you. You’d never really thought about what you’d do if you had the means to decorate with whatever the hell you wanted. It’d just never crossed your mind. 

You find the futon, at least it likely won’t send Dave panicking if you pass out there. In fact it was probably the best place for it. The pillow at one end and the rumpled blanket left haphazardly draped over the back of the couch made it pretty obvious this was where Dave’s Bro slept. You didn’t feel like pawing through his--your things in the dark, so exploring was probably better left till morning.

Where  _ was he _ ? The Other Dirk. Jake’s Brain Phantom hadn’t needed you there to exist, even if you managed to hijack it that one time. Why hadn’t retreating back to the medium allowed your Spinterself to regain control? He couldn’t be gone. You were fairly certain your powers didn’t work that way, even before you got yourself killed and ascended. You just...existed. And if you happened to exist in multiple iterations, it was easy to track and reconcile and slip in and out of them. Your sparkly magic powers didn’t  _ overwrite _ things. It’s not like he was another iteration of the sixteen year old you, able to seamlessly merge with your player self. This whole room was a shrine to his presence, and while you could see yourself too, you were fully aware that you were treading on ground that didn’t belong to you.

You stare up at the ceiling for hours, lost in your own head, going over everything you’d heard about your own Bro. And everything you’d heard from your Dave. They’d wasted so much time in uncomfortable silence. The shadows gently creep across it, there should be a scorch mark there from where one of your early prototypes had exploded. That section near the wall had cracked in a storm once. You fixed it the best you could, but it would leak. 

The dark blue was just beginning to lighten when  _ something _ on the edge of your attention sets off a warning bell. Nothing literal, just the portion of your mind you set to exploring the medium sitting up and going “hey we should probably pay attention to this.” The dark space bubbles forward, engulfing the room as you pull the blanket around yourself for camouflage if Dave peeks his head in to check on you-- _ whywouldhedothat?becauseyouscaredhimlastnight. _

In the medium, your shades are a comforting weight on your face and you are keenly aware that you missed them, even if this particular set hadn’t left your face. There wasn’t a shard to be seen now, having left them all behind not too long ago. Masses blocked your way, and you find yourself slowing your course. Hesitating. Big chunks of rock, floating in a relatively dense ring, stretching on and on before you on either side. These should have become the meteors that would set off the end of the world, only you never managed to trigger the Reckoning in your dead session. Maybe that’s why the Batterwitch had felt the need to send her drones to flush you and Roxy out, there wasn’t an appropriate threat doing the job for her.

You should be happy. You’d been trying to get back to the Incipisphere. This meant you were on the right track. But…

You’d made the venture to and from Derse often enough, usually running off to drag Roxy’s sleepwalking self back home. Derse had orbited on the outer edge of the ring of meteors. Facing the void that you’d just come from. And every time, there’d been a faint light shining through the gaps between the stones. Even as a non prototyped battlefield, Skaia shone brightly. 

This was...nothing.

_ An explosion. _

_ the whole blasted universe threatening to fall to pieces on your heads. _

_ The fields of dead stars flung and scattered throughout the void, far beyond where the horrorterrors should slumber. _

You...didn’t like the conclusion you were drawing. 

Not at all.

You needed to get on the internet. You had to find your friends. 


	4. Dirk > Find Your Friends

The computer is password locked. Of _course_ it is. Why wouldn’t it be if you were sharing a living space with another human being. You hesitate to just straight up guess, because knowing yourself you’d rig it to lock down after an unspecified number of attempts on the principle of the matter. You search the desk instead, squinting against the faint light of dawn filtering through one of the windows. There is a plethora of papers, but nothing that seems like it could be a clue to the password. Why _would_ there be a clue? That’s an internet safety taboo.

You might just have to wing it. What would _you_ put as a password? You’d never really needed one. Or at least not one that wasn’t full on encryption. Being one of the only two humans on earth afforded you some protection from malicious invasion of privacy from the mundane.

It’s not like you could have kept Roxy out anyway. That girl could hack through goddamn _time._

You let your eyes wander the room, looking for an idea, anything that jumped out at you as Important. What was something innocuous, fairly short (the field maxed out at 8 characters), that you (Dirk) would never forget?

You stiffen, tense as hell as you regard a particular ventriloquist doll sitting innocently on a large speaker block in the corner. Glassy blue eyes gleaming at you from the mid-morning shadows cast by the rising sun.

That wasn’t there last night.

You’re sure of it.

You would have noticed.

Almost without your input, your fingers type in six characters and hit enter.

The Desktop appears.

_Of course._

You’d had Lil’Cal with you since you were a baby. There are just some things that are universal constants.

It’s just...Cal. The closest thing you had to a guardian. No big deal. In fact, it was nice to see him again. Sort of. Even if it sent unexplicable unease crawling across your skin.

_HE IS EMPTY RIGHT NOW_

The weight of those glassy eyes prickled in between your shoulder blades, but you drag your focus back to the computer. The desktop was a mess of unfamiliar programs and unnamed folders, but luckily there were a few windows already open at the bottom, probably from whatever your splinterself had been doing before...all this happened. One was something called an aggregator, which was _way_ too overwhelming for you right now. You avoid it in favor of the vanilla web-browser. Dave’s Bro didn’t have pesterchum or even something that remotely looked like a chat client installed. That was probably something you should fix.

You couldn’t imagine a life without it. Without being able to meet and grow to know your friends. Even if two of them would have been dead 400 years before you--

If Jake and Jane were displaced so far from you and Roxy in your world...

It couldn’t be. You pull up a search engine, thrumming your fingers agitatedly against the desk. Entering Jake English alone is futile. His name is too damn generic. Something… you need something more historically significant to branch off of--something well documented--something global...

Crocker.

Betty Crocker.

The internet regurgitates fact after fact about the baking company. You skim it, noting with bewilderment that while the corporation is still rather monolithic and entrenched in the supermarket landscape, it isn’t quite as insidiously pervasive throughout the technology sectors as you remember from your history lessons. In fact, a lot of the technological advances you’d studied as warning signs of the invasion were absent, including Jake’s grandmother’s company and several technologies you retroactively recognized as sburb based.

Where was the Condesce? The malevolent force your Bro and Roxy’s mom dedicated their lives to stop? Everything you can find on Betty Crocker was less secret evil fish troll warlord and more...human ruthless business woman.

Something sticks out from the rather vanilla flavored baking history, and you add another term to the search parameters. The addition of ‘meteor’ narrows the results down further to a handful of archived news articles, originating from Maple Valley, Washington. The name rings a bell. That’s Jane’s home town.

A meteor impact destroyed the local Betty Crocker factory several decades ago. You cross-reference the year and find yourself staring at Betty Crocker’s imposing face, holding two small toothilly grinning children in her arms. The entire picture was at odd to the mourning blacks all three were dressed in.

‘ _Baking Baroness Adopts Twins in the Wake of Husband’s Passing’_

You skim the article, zeroing in on the children’s names. Jake and Jane Crocker. Adopted in _1952._ You slump back in your chair. Feeling very much like your strings have been cut. All the manic energy drains out of you as you stare at the year, doing the math in your head with the 2006 in the corner.. _54 years old at least_ . And that was assuming they are _still alive_.

Pushing yourself, you reach for the mouse. It trembles as you move it. No wait, that’s your hand shaking. Great. This doesn’t mean anything. So what if they are in their 50s. That’s younger than Jane’s Poppop was when he died. It isn't a 400 year difference. Probably only like. 20. You’re probably in your 30s. It’s not that weird-- _itwasweirditwassoweirdtothinkofjakeandjanebeingsofarapart._

In this world the Baking conglomerate isn’t chronicled with the near religious fervor you remember, so it’s harder to find information about the family than you expected. An article in passing mentions Jake Crocker disowning the family business and vanishing from the pitiful excuse for a corporate confectioners limelight entirely. Jane Crocker worked at her mother’s company for a time before she too stepped down, although the reasons given hinted at an upcoming marriage.

...Nothing about death, although you find an obituary mourning the passing of Betty Crocker herself several years later, a footnote of which mentions she was survived by two children, _Jane Egbert and Jake Harley._

More fuel for your investigation. You should have guessed about Harley, that had been Jake’s Grandmother’s name before she took on English to spite the Batterwitch. Egbert on the other hand. What kind of name was that? Who the heck did Janey marry?

Slowly and surely, the snippets of public record paint a picture of your friends. Jake occasionally made waves in certain exploratory and gentleman clubs with his good natured eccentricity and his willingness to tackle challenges most people would shrink away from, before he retired to the same Hellmurder Island in the middle of the pacific ocean. Jane, on the other hand, lived relatively quietly. Mentioned as a widow of one Jeramiah Egbert, along with son Dan. On record as the owner of a joke shop that was only notable for being destroyed by a meteor 9 years or so ago.

And then you find her obituary.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit shorter than most and kinda info-dumpy. But well. That ending felt right.
> 
> Dave chapter next :) And it's longer than normal so it shoooould make up for it I think.


	5. Dave > Fail to Get a Good Night Sleep

Your name is Dave Strider, and you’re almost ten years old now. You think your bro is awesome, your new friend john has terrible taste in movies, and that dead shit and sick beats are tied for the coolest things ever. Your Bro is literally a sword wielding, puppet toting, urban samurai, and he trains you every day to follow in his awesome ninja footsteps.  

Or he should be. He was conspicuously absent from the training part of that right now. Yesterday was utterly terrifying, seeing him slumped on the kitchen floor like some lame limp noodle. And this morning wasn’t much better. You still can’t believe you’d lost your cool like that. In front of  _ him. _ You hadn’t slept a wink. Just waiting for him to get you back for disappointing him and breaking your poker-face and poking your nose where it doesn’t belong. You were supposed to have an understanding about that feelings shit. 

You should have trusted that he would have thrown off whatever the hell last night was on his own. Nevermind that he hadn’t moved from that boneless slump since you saw him freak out in the kitchen earlier in the day. Maybe you should have just pretended not to see and let him work his shit out like he always did with your moments of weakness. You really appreciated those moments. Really. They gave you enough time to school your emotions on the rules of the bro-code and return everything to a zen state of chill you both appreciated so much.

Really.

You are supposed to be the chillest of chill. The epitome of chill. Not some blubbering baby too powder-bottom soft to know what a stiff upper-lip meant.

You just  _ had _ to panic and interfere. Of course Bro wasn’t dying. Outside of the heat of the moment the idea was frankly preposterous (boo ya 16 point word.) It was insulting. And he was going to take the price for it out of your hide. Or your pride. Possibly even both.

What would it be this time? A cascade of puppet rumps thrown onto your bed to greet you in the morning? Ironic blasting of shitty pop music in your ear? Full contact-Lil’Cal to the face? One or more of your bro’s half-naked hip-hop idols tucked lovingly into your arms while you slept? 

There were no depths too ironic for Bro to plunder when seeking his revenge. Well, the joke was on him. You were ready for him. With your back to the corner there was no where for him to flash-step and get the drop on you, and your fortifications of pillows and boxes on your bed should be enough to interrupt the path to reduce the effectiveness of the move. The hatches were so battened down it was tighter security than Ft Knox up in here. If this shit was a battlefield you were a tactical  _ general _ , ever vigilant for the invading forces.

 

Tick-tock. 

Tick-tock.

Waited.

Tick-tock.

Tick-tock.

But nobody came.

The apartment was eerily quiet. Bro never missed training, and he only rarely canceled it for your benefit. You had to be seriously wheezing or coughing up a lung before he’d take your temperature and bundle you back into bed to fend for yourself. 

Then again, you can’t remember  _ him _ ever being sick before either, and that’s obviously what happened last night.

6 hours, 23 minutes, and 34, 35, 36-- _ 37,38,39 fuck why are you still counting-- _ seconds later you finally throw in the towel. You’ve survived this long on nerves and hypervigilance, but your energy was starting to lag as the lack of a night’s sleep began dragging at your eyelids. 

6 hours and 32 minutes and _12,13,14_ after The Incident you poke your head out of the door. The AJ you’d absconded with last night was weighing heavy in your bladder, and you regretted ever going for it.

Nothing attacked you, puppet or steel, as you entered the hallway. If he’s not here, then maybe he actually did fuck off to the doctor’s or wherever and you’ll need to look out for evening training instead. That’s fine. Maybe you can catch a cat-nap in your closet in preparation. You can barely maintain a flashstep on a good day, you don’t wanna risk it on no sleep.

You finish your business and then adjust your totally cool shades. Looking good. You turn your gaze toward the end of the hallway, weighing whether or not you wanted to risk the chance that Bro is actually home and waiting for you in the living room.

6 minutes, 45, 46, 47, you decide against it and cut your losses. You have some crackers stashed in the closet, and you’re gonna take that nap while the taking is good. If Bro hadn’t revenge pranked you by now, he’s probably got something prepared and was just waiting for you to return to the scene of the crime. You aren’t walking into that shit without a nap and some pesterchum-and-chill with John--

Nap. Nap is good.

Your fortify your position again, out of habit more than really expecting an attack although you could never rule out anything with Bro. He was serious about situational awareness and constant vigilance and that shit. 

You don’t bother with the pillow and just lean up against the wall, surrounded by the battlements of your sanctuary, and you are out like a light. 

2 hours and 7 minutes later on the dot and you wake. You stare blearily at the still barred door of your room, at the unmistakably bright sunlight filtering through Houston’s smog-haze, and then finally down at the phone peeking out of your blankets. Back to the door. No text from Bro demanding your presence. No clay-face visitors taking advantage of your personal-space bubble. You just sit there.

An arm snaps out of your fortifications, fingers closing around the oblong device and then pulling it back inside your fortress. No notifications period, other than a confirmation that the school received your last assignment successfully and a reminder that you had another one coming up. Man. Fuck school. That meant you needed to get Bro to sign off on it. You could forge it probably. But then Bro would be angry if he found out. And he would, since he has to mail the things off, although you’re fairly certain you know where he keeps the stamps n shit.

At least you liked these assignments. It made it more bearable than say, history. You wish it was biology  or--what was it? The -ology that was the history of dead shit? That’d be way more awesome than learning about some old fuddy duddies who happened to be the right amount of rich and influential at the right time. Or wrong time. The French Revolution had been pretty funny and subversive in that way.

Aw yeah. 18 points. Talk about practical applications.

You drag yourself out of bed. The nap  _ had _ worked to chase off the fatigue nipping at your heels like a pack of vicious tiny chihuahuas by throwing it a juicy wrack of ribs to yip over and gnaw on for a while, but you were keenly aware of the fact that you probably needed far more than a measly two hours. No help for it. If you are awake, you are awake. You wanted to tell John about your dream anyway.

Pesterchum is up on your computer. It always is. You scroll through your list of friends. You have a lot of course, everyone in the chatrooms want a piece of your smooth red text. They hang onto your every word. Just waiting for you to descend from on high to impart some tidbit of wisdom or a snippet of a rhyme you were working on to the unwashed masses.

But even then you have your short list. Your A-List. The friends upon friends that transcend all others--

Okay so it’s only one person. And you literally just met a few weeks ago. And he has a shit taste in movies, although you can appreciate the irony in liking such garbage trashfires to the point where it becomes good again. But damn it you and John clicked. You had the feeling you were going to be best bros.

… who the hell is ectoBiologist? 

It had to be John. You only had one person on that list, and you suppose it’s still on theme with ghostlyTrickster. Dude is obsessed with ghostbusters. You’re a little disappointed. You’d appreciated the amusing irony in the initials.

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  ectoBiologist[EB]

turntechGodhead [TG] yo dude you there you just up and changed your username so i just wanted to make sure you were okay  
turntechGodhead [TG] i get it it must be a ghostbusters thing   
turntechGodhead [TG] i remember you raving about it the other day   
turntechGodhead [TG] man cant believe youre taking this love affair so seriously  
turntechGodhead [TG] con air is going to be jealous remember the bunny john you cant leave casey high and dry can you  
turntechGodhead [TG] next thing you know youll be wearing slimers ugly mug on your shirt and carting around one of those back mounted vacuum cleaners as some two bit cosplay and ill just be sitting here and laughing at how ridiculous you look  
turntechGodhead [TG] i wonder if those exist as backpacks just a minute let me google it real quick  
turntechGodhead [TG] ...oh god they do  
turntechGodhead [TG] whelp there you go something to ask your dad for your birthday or christmas or whatever   
turntechGodhead [TG] youre welcome for the idea im extracting my head from this rabbit hole immediately  
turntechGodhead [TG] moving on  
turntechGodhead [TG] i just had the weirdest dream  
turntechGodhead [TG] i was in this giant tower right  
turntechGodhead [TG] all decked out in fancy purple and silver moons and shit  
turntechGodhead [TG] can you imagine living in those kind of digs bro???  
turntechGodhead [TG] its like I was a king of my own castle  
turntechGodhead [TG] or maybe just a knight idk  
turntechGodhead [TG] someone important at least  
turntechGodhead [TG] can you imagine me sitting on some pretentious cushy throne with a scepter giving orders?  
turntechGodhead [TG] all hail the moon king fear me peasant kiss my rad red cape or off with your head  
turntechGodhead [TG] did i mention i had a cape  
turntechGodhead [TG] i dont know receiving subjects sounds boring as fuck all the bowing and groveling  
turntechGodhead [TG] i would rather slay dragons or rescue princesses or even princes i dont care im not picky  
turntechGodhead [TG] man i wish my dream was about dragons instead  
turntechGodhead [TG] i just stood there listening to some shitty clock ticking, counting the seconds  
turntechGodhead [TG] 7620 seconds in case you were curious i know you are dying to know  
turntechGodhead [TG] waste of a dream man  
turntechGodhead [TG] damn it john youre still at school arent you  
turntechGodhead [TG] dont leave your computer on if you aren’t there dont you know that wastes energy and gets peoples hopes up  
turntechGodhead [TG] i guess it is only like noon   
turntechGodhead [TG] dont mind me i forget most of the rest of the world isnt free as a bird looking for an unsuspecting statue or passerby to do its business on  
turntechGodhead [TG] thats your pesterchum window in the metaphor fyi because you left it logged in like a nerd and i got time  
turntechGodhead [TG] i got so much time  
turntechGodhead [TG] call me the king of time its ticking in my head like a song i just gotta get out   
turntechGodhead [TG] bust out the turntables and just make that baby spin gonna leap right through time kapow back to the golden age  
turntechGodhead [TG] oh wait i decided i was a knight not a king thats fine knights are cooler anyway  
turntechGodhead [TG] good luck at school i guess dont stick gum in susies hair or get caught passing notes or something idak what people do in school   
turntechGodhead [TG] im sure its just like it is on tv all prepubescent drama and barely controlled chaos and teachers cackling and rubbing their hands together just waiting to get their mitts on those impressionable minds   
turntechGodhead [TG] ive been doing my vocabulary homework cant you tell those were some 20 point words right there read em and weep egbert  
turntechGodhead [TG] homeschool is lame and useless i dont need math or history to be a sick urban ninja dj   
turntechGodhead [TG] but the words the words man i need these in my life you cant make miracles outta nothin i need material ill eat a thesaurus everyday of my life  
turntechGodhead [TG] okay that one was only 12 points cut me some slack  
turntechGodhead [TG] can you believe bro got after me for swearing last night???  
turntechGodhead [TG] like he can talk he said fuck immediately afterwards  
turntechGodhead [TG] still cant believe he didnt school my ass after that it was a weird night i keep waiting for the other shoe to drop  
turntechGodhead [TG] or maybe a puppet  
turntechGodhead [TG] i guess i cant keep hiding in my room forever gotta face the demonic singing of the marionette barber shop quartet sooner or later  
turntechGodhead [TG] dont get me wrong puppets are still awesome   
turntechGodhead [TG] but if im not back in an hour im probably dead buried in puppet ass avenge me pls  
turntechGodhead [TG] just dont bust my ghost the afterlife needs some excitement how can you deny it my chill red text 

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  ectoBiologist[EB]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Kat figured out how to format pesterchum logs!
> 
> Granted there's some fairly important tidbits in this chapter. it isn't just an excuse to write dave for a while nope. Next chapter is gonna belong to him too, although ya'll may need to wait on it. I've decided I'm gonna put updates on hold till monday so I'm not tempted to shirk my homework. I'll still be working on it, but I'm gonna do my best to resist updating XD


	6. Dave > Venture Out

If you stare long enough, would the world start to make sense?

You straight  up don’t recognize your own  _ home _ right now.

It’s like a whirlwind of destruction ran amuck through your the living room leaving...something behind.  _ Definitely  _ Something alright. Was it too late to abscond?

There isn’t a plush neon rump in sight, and only the occasional nose poking out of a pile hidden in the corner, tucked between the speaker system and the tv. You find yourself missing those wide open cheeks littering every surface because at least that would be normal. 

This. Is not normal.

Is this your Bro’s revenge? It’s a level of irony beyond your feeble brain can comprehend, destroying your carefully crafted balancing act of normality and sending you reeling into the land of twilight town? Complete with eerie 80s era tv themes and black and white filters and you were just waiting for the iconic voice over to boom around you.

Bro’s oh so precious audio equipment, which he has _not_ let you so much as touch since you ruined the last one with a misplaced bottle of AJ, is in _pieces in the center of the floor_ , wires exposed and panels strewn on every available surface. You know intimately how much that set up costs. You’ve drooled over the listings online more than once as you dreamed of owning one of your own one day. Bro’s handmedown isn’t bad at all and you appreciate the heck out of the fact that he gave it to you instead of selling it, but _his own equipment_ was another level of sacred. 

And yet. Here it is. With Bro’s normal gloves nowhere to be seen, several small tools you didn’t even know he had littering the floor, and staring very intently at something in his hand.

“Is it broken or something?”

He doesn’t respond, examining a small … circuit board? You’ve never actually  _ seen _ one before, outside of pixels on your computer screen, all green and silver and black and tiny pieces, so thin you’d be afraid of snapping the thing just from breathing on it. And Bro was holding it daintily in his big adult hand as if it held the mysteries of the universe.

“Bro seriously what the hell.”

The shrug was only marginally more unexpected than the fact that you received a response at all. 

“You still aren’t dying right”

The words blurt out of your mouth before your brain can catch up to it. And you want to strangle yourself. Bringing that up was the last thing you wanted--

But it got bro to look up. His face is drawn, and his eyes feel...older. You are not used to him without his shades. It was wrong. Objectively you’ve always known your bro had orange eyes the color of the sky at sunset, you’ve lived with the dude as long as you remember, and no matter how sneaky he liked to be when engaged in stealth mode he had to take off the shades  _ sometimes.  _

But something about the lack of barrier rattled you terribly. Bro was untouchable. He wore his stoicism like a goddamn suit of armor. It was just  _ how he was. _

This…

“Who fuckin’ knows” The laugh was almost barked. He turned back to the circuit board, swiping some sort of larger panel full of other card full of little chips and wires and slots.

“...what the hell bro.”

You’re just repeating yourself and you know it and it infuriates you. 

There’s that shrug again. Despite the careless motion, you can see the tension in his posture, as if coiled power was barely restrained and trying to vibrate itself out into motion. As if  _ he  _ wanted to flee. Despite all this his face held that same blank thin lined expression you’ve grown up with.

Ugh. Feelings shit. Awkwardly you take a step forward, eyeing the side panel to the turn-table’s main body propped up against the sampler on the other side of the room. 

“Can you put it back together?”

Deflect, deflect. God don’t start talking about it again.

“Probably.”

“If you can’t?”

_ Shrug. _

“That’s…” You grope for words. What happened to your patented motormouth?  The words feel trapped in red text that don’t translate well to actual words and sounds. There’s a disconnect somewhere, your fingers twitching as if you could type the words into existance rather than leaving them trapped under the layer of ice an  _ almost _ face to face conversation creates. Your mouth works soundlessly “Why?”

“Needed to work with my hands.” And damn now that you were watching them he was  _ so careful _ while assembling that forest of green and gold. You aren’t used to those hands doing anything other than swinging a sword at your face or curled around some sort of game controller. “Taking things apart help. Figuring out how they go back together helps more.”

“So you pick the most expensive thing in the apartment. Okay.”

He tenses. You freeze, eyes widening behind your shades. Carefully, he sets the set of chips to the side and goddamn it you did it. You took the wrong step and your foot landed on the mine here it comes. Your strife specibus is always stocked but he’s always faster on the draw than you are--

But he just looks away.

“TRAINING” You blurt out, catching his attention again. “You didn’t come get me for morning session.”

Fingers raked through platinum blonde hair, the carefully neutral expression tightens. It’s just the slightest tick of his jaw, but in a house where reading Bro’s mannerisms meant the difference between a good night’s sleep and a midnight ambush it was an obvious tell. “Not a good idea, b-lil bro.”

“Why not?” You demand with more force than you probably needed to considering you _don’t want_ _a strife._

Actually maybe you do. At least it’d be fucking normal and not…

Whatever this shit is. 

You don’t like feeling like a stranger in your own home.

“Dave.”

You flinch.

“I’m tired.” He’s a mess. You’re a mess. This entire goddamn conversation is a mess. “Training wouldn’t do  _ either _ of us any good.”

“As if that ever stopped you before.” And there’s the complete and utter lack of a filter. But you couldn’t stop it. This was so wrong so weird just came tumbling out, the moment lengthening as time felt like it screeched to a stop.

The silence stretched. Bro regarding you with those too tired eyes and just this once you resisted the urge to flinch. Straight backed and daring him to come at you. Swordkind at your fingertips, you’re ready.

Bro blinks first, closing his eyes in a slow exhale. You have to strain to hear his quiet mumble “Fuck. I really screwed this up.” Louder. “It isn’t happening. No strings attached. No ambushes. Nothing.”

You cross your arms dubiously. (damn it almost 16 points.)

The stalemate lasts for 3 minutes and 10,11,12 seconds before he snags one of the tiny tools and begins reattaching connector wires. 

Pointedly ignoring you. Well. Two of you can play at that game.

You don’t look a gift-horse in the mouth and pick your way across the room, although you make sure you don’t turn your back either. Maybe this is a test. He’s trying his best to throw you off to see if you’ll lose your cool. 

You head towards the kitchen, trying to think if you remembered anything other than the apple juice you took last night in there. The memories were fuzzy. There might have been a not-quite-yet moldy loaf of bread buried in bro’s throwing stars, and you are pretty sure you have some peanutbutter in one of the cabinates if bro hasn’t thrown it out yet--

And you just stare. Trying to comprehend the sight that greets you. 

You completely forget the mutual ignoring going on and the words just come out. 

“Where the fuck did you put the weapons?”

A pause. 

“Away.”

The counters were clear as a goddamn whistle, sparkling in the light coming in from the window. You could eat off that shit. You reach up and grab the countertop, it’s barely at your eyelevel right now you can’t wait to put on another couple inches, and heave yourself up. Even the kitchen sink had been scrubbed down. You can’t remember the last time you’d seen the faint cracked pattern in the countertop. 

It wasn’t even that you guys left it messy. You just... never used it except as additional weapons storage. Bro never cooked, and more often than not you guys nuked take-out if you were going to have a hot  _ anything _ . There’d been no real need to scrub the buildup except like every few months.

You check the fridge. The swords are gone too. Leaving the cooling container depressingly empty. At least with the weapons in there you could pretend there was food hidden underneath it. 

“Shit. You really are dying.”

You don’t think you’ve ever heard him laugh like that before. A little muffled snort that opened up into a low quiet, bitter laugh.

With a sinking feeling in your stomach, you realize you probably haven’t heard him  _ speak _ this much at once before.

Or that  _ you _ have either.

You may type mile a minute, but you can count the number of real life people you’ve spoken to on both hands, and Bro doesn’t make for much of a conversation partner on one of the rare good days he gave you the time of day outside of training. 

Hell, Lil’Cal was better.

You really don’t like that train of thought and you don’t  _ want _ to think about what those implications mean to your homelife so you just straight up don’t.

A freshly peanut butter’d slab of not-quite moldy carbohydrates later and you make a break for the hallway. You almost make it.

“Hey bro?”

You tense, turning the movement into a casual glance over your shoulder, “Yeah?”

He’s still not looking at you.

“Things are changing, figured I should warn you.”

“Oh sure. Drop some cryptic shit on me like that. That’s super helpful.” You roll your eyes, not that he can see it behind your shades. It makes you feel better though. You’re far enough away and he’s buried in wires so you feel a little more at ease letting that awkward ice thaw. “Changing how? ‘luke i am your father’ kind of changing, or ‘i’m pulling you out of school and we’re going on a training journey to china’, or ‘i’ve suddenly seen the light and converting to apple juice’ or what?”

He didn’t respond at all. Irritated that he interrupted your escape for something like this you throw in one last parting shot.

“Well, get back to me when you figure it out.”

You don’t stop until you are safely back into your room again. Where things make at least a smidgen more sense. Or at least you can pretend they do.

35 minutes and 56 seconds after you ceased pestering john you open the window again.

turntechGodhead began pestering  ectoBiologist[EB]

turntechGodhead [TG] i think my bro has gone mental  
turntechGodhead [TG] i dont know how to feel about this

turntechGodhead ceased pestering  ectoBiologist[EB]

3 hours 15 minutes and 23, 24, 25 seconds of theraputic beats pumping through almost sound canceling headphones like a cascading waterfall surging and cocooning you, drowning you, muffling everything except the ebb and flow of sound vibrating through your tired core, you get a response. Just a flicker of orange out of the corner of your eye as the muted notification does its job. 

You mournfully crank the volume down just enough to allow yourself to hear your own thoughts, but not enough to lose the soothing levels of zen you were indulging in right now.

ectoBiologist[EB] began pestering  turntechGodhead[TG]

ectoBiologist [EB] wasn’t he always?   
turntechGodhead [TG] shut up   
ectoBiologist [EB] i don’t know man, it even you got to admit it this time.   
ectoBiologist [EB] what did he do to topple the pedestal?  
ectoBiologist [EB] was it the puppet? i bet it was the puppet.   
turntechGodhead [TG] fuck you puppets are awesome   
turntechGodhead [TG] and its not like you can talk with all those clowns   
ectoBiologist [EB] dude, i’m the last person to argue that. i hate those things.   
turntechGodhead [TG] it was a couple thousand dollars worth of audio equipment in pieces on the floor and an actual clean kitchen and cryptic things are changing bullshit  
turntechGodhead [TG] pinch me please this has to be a nightmare   
turntechGodhead [TG] i dont even get to enjoy my rad cape this time i feel cheated   
ectoBiologist [EB] i would totally slap your smug face if you were within arms reach i promise.   
turntechGodhead [TG] thank you   
ectoBiologist [EB] i don’t know though that doesn’t seem so bad.   
ectoBiologist [EB] funny you should mention dreams though. that’s actually why i changed usernames.  
turntechGodhead [TG] really???  
turntechGodhead [TG] i thought it was some ghostbusters shit   
ectoBiologist [EB] i mean it probably is. i was some sort of ghost scientist. doing ghost science and there was a lot of slime. i woke up thinking about it and it just kinda came to me. pretty awesome right?  
turntechGodhead [TG] nah dude its totally lame  
turntechGodhead [TG] although not as lame as a ghostbusters reference i guess   
ectoBiologist [EB] ew dog that was uncalled for take it back   
turntechGodhead [TG] lame   
ectoBiologist [EB] ass   
turntechGodhead [TG] oh man john language do i need to tell your dad   
turntechGodhead [TG] his little john is growing up into a merryman and calling people asses   
turntechGodhead [TG] im obviously the robin hood  
turntechGodhead [TG] dashing hero   
turntechGodhead [TG] great hair   
turntechGodhead [TG] i draw the line at tights though   
ectoBiologist [EB] you are the weirdest kid i’ve ever met, TG.  
turntechGodhead [TG] i was born and raised on the internet what do you expect  
turntechGodhead [TG] shitty humor and bad language is as much a part of me as my own flesh and blood  
turntechGodhead [TG] you may have been sheltered from its corrupting tendrils by the dadliest of parental overlords but I learned at the feet of the gods of freedom from oversight  
turntechGodhead [TG] pretty sure bro doesnt give a shit what i look at at long as im not stupid about what i download   
turntechGodhead [TG] even then hed just laugh and chalk it up to a lesson learned if i bricked my computer  
turntechGodhead [TG] for real though my socialization consisted of a deadly ninja assassin and his puppet pal and the internet i think im all kinds of fucked up   
turntechGodhead [TG] im surprised i havent run you off by now tbh  
turntechGodhead [TG] ...  
turntechGodhead [TG] i didnt did i???  
turntechGodhead [TG] john  
turntechGodhead [TG] GT  
turntechGodhead [TG] shit  
turntechGodhead [TG] EB  
ectoBiologist [EB] sorry! Dad wanted to ask about school.   
ectoBiologist [EB] you’re fine dave. you’re weird but it’s an interesting kind of weird.   
ectoBiologist [EB] dad would totally ground me if he saw our chats. because you’re a stranger and he seems to think kids dont exist on the internet and so you have to be some creepy stalker dude.   
ectoBiologist [EB] but i think you’re pretty okay.  
ectoBiologist [EB] please note i didn’t say you’re cool because we both know you’re just a nerd   
turntechGodhead [TG] hey i resemble that remark  
ectoBiologist [EB] better check your word list because i think you mean resent.   
turntechGodhead [TG] nope i stand behind my statement 100 percent besides it takes one to know one  
turntechGodhead [TG] nerd

John’s blue text on your screen and the music in your head meshes with the soothing ticking of time and you put bro out of your mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to dirk next chapter!


	7. Dirk > Connect

The day won’t end.

You’ve taken apart and reassembled your splinterself’s equipment multiple times. You’re fairly certain it still works. A smile tugs at your lips as you remember Dave’s incredulous outburst upon seeing what you’d been up to all day. While not exactly the same model as the one your Bro left you in your apartment, it was similar enough and from the proper timeframe that you were able to make sense of the inner workings, although there’d been a few pieces of skaianet’s technology in that one that was sorely missing here. Since. You know. Skaianet never needed to exist.

The smiles withers and dies. What did you expect to find? The universe wasn’t kind. Jane’s grandfather had died via meteor. You should have expected to find the parallel. But some small hope, the realization that while you were displaced, you were still within a lifetime of each other, had refused to be smothered until you’d been surrounded by the choking fumes of the black and white scanned obituary.

You are good with your hands. And tinkering let you think. Or not think. You’d almost liken it to a state where you could just detach yourself from the emotions and just focus on the logic problem before you.

Jake’s grandmother had died too. On that island. You hadn’t found an obituary but...reclusive fairly well off eccentric, living mostly alone on a remote and otherwise deserted island? There’s no reason anyone would know or report on it. You wanted to snatch at the hope that the lack of batterwitch and skaianet meant he wouldn’t be assassinated like she had, but you couldn’t bring yourself to do so.

Heh. Universal constants.

What iteration was this universe anyway? The third? There was Dave’s, then yours, and now some weird loop back around to the previous configuration only not entirely because _you_ are still here and skaia has gone dark and you don’t have enough information. Did the gamestate reset? Was skaia just dark because the war hasn’t started yet? Would you find the black royalty still on Derse, the battle not yet begun? Would you find _Dave_ on Derse? Still asleep in ignorance of the doom stalking him and his friends?

You exhale in frustration, a small hiss of air through clenched teeth as you finish screwing in the last one, securing the side into place, and then carefully stow the toolkit away. You’d found it shoved in one of the (depressingly empty) cupboards during your cleaning spree earlier. This splinterself’s lack of interest in mechanical engineering had you shaking your head, wondering how such a thing could have happened to any version of yourself.

Maybe you were the one who’d gone wrong. Cooped up alone in an apartment surrounded by ocean, you’d scavenged appliances and supplies your bro had left behind to tinker and eventually create the two bots that would eventually be your first friends. This splinter had the whole world if he’d just had the inkling to take a single step outside the walls. And for all you know maybe he had.

You kind of doubt it. You’d found his phone while cleaning off the desk, buried in a pile of magazines. There was maybe a handful of contacts, none of which had any sort of useful identifying names, such as ‘harpy’, ‘necessary evil’, ‘agent’, ‘money hungry bastard’. None of which made you feel any more inclined to call them to try and figure out who the hell they were. At least they were slightly more descriptive than the dozens of unnamed folders on the desktop. Sooner or later you’ll need to go through those if you can’t find any evidence of a life outside this apartment. At least you are sure which number is Dave’s. Lil’Bro is fairly obvious.

You aren’t willing to touch that yet. But you probably will. Distance and the freedom to consider your words carefully would likely lead to a better conversational outcome for both parties given how tense you both were.

The dull roar of the city buzzes in your bones, although you’ve gotten better at blocking it out. It was really no different than the gentle crash of the waves against the support struts and the screaming of the gulls back home. Just. Louder.

You don’t think you’ll ever be used to the contaminants in the air though. The Land of Tombs and Krypton had much thicker atmosphere, but you’d been able to alchemize a mask for that, and even then some weird game magic had kept the gasses from creeping into your home. This just kept irritating your eyes and your throat, requiring you to flush them every so often, although as least you weren’t constantly choking anymore.

Placing the turntable back on the cinderblocks was a lot easier than you expected, barely earning a grunt of exertion from you as you settle it gently into place. This body was too big. Too tall. But it was strong, you had to give it that. Given the amount of weapons you’d found stashed around the place (which you’d stowed in the crawlspace above the living room for now, although going up there made your heart ache for your workshop and your tools and your countless prototypes you poured so much of your life into,) and how Dave had reacted to the idea of missing “ _training”_ , your splinterself had been very focused on keeping it that way.

You don’t know what to do about that. Dave obviously expected it. But your--no not your Bro, but the one who could have been your friend--Dave hadn’t explicitly mentioned the training sessions other than in passing about how violent his childhood was.

Definitely nothing without the kid’s permission. And definitely not when you were sure he hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep. You might not know him well enough yet, but there was a faint tremble in the way he held himself that gave it away like an open book.

You straighten up and sigh, looking around the room trying to decide what to do next. And while in the back of your mind you can faintly see the shadows of the medium as your gameself works on looking for Derse along the outer-ring of meteors, you don’t feel comfortable fully slipping until you at least have the plausible deniability of sleeping. Not that you didn’t have problems to solve here too.

Cleaning had clued you in on many things. None of which you had a plan for right now. But the most pressing thing was…

You had next to zero supplies.

Back home you could have fished or caught gulls. Or bartered with Roxy for some pumpkins. Here in this sea of glass and steel and actual living human beings you couldn’t do either of them. You’d tried lurking on the roof for a while, waiting for the native city-birds to get curious. But you could already tell the big sleek black birds were too damn smart. Keeping an eye on you from a distance, judging you. Nothing like the stupid seagulls who came running the moment they saw you because you always brought bait and they always seemed to forget that several of them didn’t make it out when you wanted something different from your canned rations.

You had to get food. You had the vaguest idea of how to go about procuring more, plenty of the movies your Bro had left you included convenience store or grocery scenes usually as the setting for a funny gag or ironic statement, but there was one slight problem with that.

1) You had no fucking idea where to go.

And 2) You had no money.

Your splinterself did. Somewhere. But your splinterself wouldn’t have known organized chaos if it bit him on the ass and it was frustrating the hell out of you.

There was only one place to store stuff aside from the already emptied cupboards, and that was the doll chest you’d offhandedly stuffed Lil’Cal into once you’d started cleaning. If your Splinterself had any sense he’d centralize any important information or documentation in something like that. You drag the surprisingly heavy chest toward the futon, perching on the furniture with hand hovering over the chest’s latch.

This was the only place you hadn’t checked yet. You’d even checked the holes in the cinderblocks and inside the tv stand and while you’d found the occasional grinning smuppet face or hidden throwing star, you’d seen absolutely nothing that looked like even vaguely legal documentation.

Life was different before the flood. You _knew_ that. There was a lot more legal shit to consider, interpersonal transactions? It was an utterly foreign concept to you, someone who’d never so much as _seen_ another human being outside of a screen until you’d ended up dragging Roxy’s dreamself all over the furthest ring. You’d done your research of course. You were _thorough._ You knew about the Batterwitch’s slow insidious infiltration of the legal system, and had a ton of miscellaneous information packed into the compartments of your brain you’d picked up while tracking her progress through history.

But...you find yourself at a loss on the personal level. You hope to hell your Splinterself had a “Legal Shit” pile somewhere or you’re pretty sure you’re screwed. Preferably next to a conveniently placed money pile.

Ugh. You are just wasting time now.

You squeeze the latch and it pops open with an innocuous click. You _know_ it isn’t booby trapped. You’d opened the damn thing to put Lil’Cal away earlier and nothing had gone off. So why the hell were you hesitating? Why had you avoided it all day? It’s just Lil’Cal.

The lid popped open, and you pause at the glassy blue eyes staring up at you. You must have jostled it when dragging it over here, because you distinctly remember folding him up, and here he is lounging as if it was a much more spacious container. You give Lil’Cal a respectful nod as a greeting and reach in, a spark of static electricity jolting from the fabric clothing to your skin. You don’t flinch, but it leaves the tips of your fingers tingling as you lift the limp noodle of a doll up out of the depths, arranging him upright and leaning against the back of the futon.

You almost imagine a little giggle as you turn your attention away from him and the weight of those not-empty eyes, focusing on the items in the bottom of the chest. Searching fingers explored the velvet lined depths, curling around several items and extracting them. A small assortment began to collect on the futon between you and Lil’Cal. Some sort of binder. A small metal box (locked and with no key in sight.) A banged up old pocket knife, the size of a child’s palm. A small copy of your-his shades. Some sort of leather cloth with a heart on it. And a note written in a chicken scratch that you didn’t really find hard to read since it had constantly covered the corners of your notes until you programmed your shades--and eventually had Hal--to take and record dictations while you worked.

“ _Dave._

_Don’t touch my shit. I mean it.”_

“It isn’t Dave, bro.” You mutter, feeling oddly weighed down by the words on the page. Irrefutable evidence that this life should belong to another. You crumple it up, crushing it in a white knuckled fist, “If you aren’t going to show up and do your damn job I’m calling finders keepers.”

If it weren’t for Dave, you’d be _glad_ to give it all back. Go find some corner of the medium and camp out for an eternity, or until the game started again and the world ended. Whatever. Your life was _gone._ Your friends are dead, even if against the odds Jake and Roxy are alive in this world, they aren’t _yours._

The paper ball hit the wall next to the TV and bounced hard. Ending up somewhere behind the speaker and likely in the pile of smuppet ass you’d thrown back there earlier.

It didn’t make you feel better.

A handful of the objects are obviously sentimental. The tiny shades. The heart stamped leather. The pocket knife. They feel personal, in a way the myriad of marionette decoration didn’t. You hold the glasses, your eyes and clenched jaw reflecting in the mirrored lenses. You should feel _something._ You are holding something important to his--your--life in your hands. You could clench your fists and shatter them with next to no effort. The edges are digging into your palm and you need to ease your fingers open.

There’s a weight here. A history you find yourself standing apart from in a way you never really felt about yet another splinter of yourself. You wonder where he found his shades. What drew him to the shape? Your Bro had provided your eyewear, several styles and sizes to choose from as you grew older. What had driven the both of you to chose the exact same angle of mirrored glass? Was this shape just _something_ wrapped up in the concept of Dirk that it was universal?

You still couldn’t bring yourself to wear his shades.

With that thought you find yourself standing up, eyes drawn to the gleam of the mirror lens where you’d left them on the computer desk, still holding the smaller miniature pair in the palm of your hand. Too long legs cross the room, and the full-sized version joins its child sized variant in your palm.

You’ll make your own, you decide. You’ve done it before. You miss your shades and their capabilities and hell you even miss Hal and creating him was one of the greatest mistakes you’ve ever made.

You didn’t want to be here.

You’d failed once already.

Dirk Strider was still Dirk Strider.

But being dropped so completely in another Dirk’s shoes, you feel a gap you’ve never felt with a splinter before. Not even with Hal, who tried so hard to convince both you and himself he was a different person. Maybe it's the weight of a generation between you two. The distance of a life yet unlived...

Maybe you are doomed to fail again.

But for the first time you looked into the mirrored lenses and saw, not yourself, or a you that you could be. Maybe not a stranger, but an old not-quite-friend who had stumbled down a different path and fallen and never had anyone to help him back up again.

And now you need to pick up the pieces.

Under the cool, unflinching stare of Lil’Cal--it almost felt judging--you gently wrap both shades in the heart-stamped cloth and stow them back in the darkness of the chest, along with the small pocket knife.

There was nothing useful for you down that road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...this is actually nowhere near the end of the chapter. But the pacing was starting to feel off so I split them up! (It's significantly longer than the rest anyway)
> 
> Don't worry sooner or later we'll get Dirk settled in! Still trying to tread water though.


	8. Dirk > Examine the Other Items

You take a breath and then exhale it into a sigh. Letting the mood pass before you turned your attention to the last two items (aside from Lil’Cal) you’d found stuffed in the trunk. The box was obviously the most promising. This was the first locked thing you’d found, which probably indicated something about it’s contents. But the binder was an easier thing to deal with right now, so you grab it and crack it open.

And then paused and let out a surprisingly maniacal laugh.

You found the “legal shit” pile.

_ Literally. _

The words “Legal Shit” stand out, a bright orange similar to your Pesterchum color, against a black tab. There’s three tabs total, sticking out at varying points in the stack of papers held together by thin metal rings.

You spread the contraption open along the closed lid of the puppet chest, giving you a wider view of your discoveries. Flipping through the contents of the Legal Shit tab, you find it, understandably, filled with legal jargon, meaning that while you theoretically understand, you don’t  _ know _ if you understand it right. Federal legal shit includes things such as citizenship and birth certificates and several printed forms that have to be related to money. You get taxes as a concept, but it still takes you a moment to recognize it and unearth the previously theoretical knowledge. Even then you stare at the stark black and white numbers and it fails to sink in that this is actually  _ real  _ and not just some absurd relic of the far distant past.

Apartment Shit is the next tab, and really only includes a few months worth of recent utility bills, although you do pointedly take a mental picture of the address as that will help you locate a food dispensary later.

The presence of the bill puzzles you however. You need to  _ pay  _  for water and electricity? What the hell. You’d just gotten it from solar panels and some desalination machine your bro had set up that pulled in water from the ocean. On second thought the latter might be a bit difficult while being landlocked, but the idea is still bizarre.

There’s something at the very end of the section you  _ think _ is called a leasing agreement, signed by your Splinterself and someone else you don’t recognize. It’s some 15 pages long, full of Important Shit you’ll probably need to figure out if you want to actually manage to pass at being an Adult, but not immediately useful.

The last major tab is just Miscellaneous Shit that you’ll need to do more internet trawling and exploring of the files on the computer to figure out. Things ranging from printed off receipts, confirmation emails, some of which  _ definitely  _ looked like website purchases and work orders, certifications in what look like a smattering of computer related fields, and even what looks like  _ Dave’s school reports.  _ You flip through the latter pages a couple times in detached shock, finding progress reports for nearly  _ five years _ worth of homeschooling preserved in this binder full of  _ Important Adult Shit, _ including certification of passing each year _. _

You knew Jane had gone to public school. You knew it was the norm for kids pre-Apocalypse-by-fish-alien. But just...hadn’t thought about it till now.

You were getting kind of tired of that. You hated being caught off guard.

Damn it. Just another thing you were going to need to pretend to know what the hell you were talking about when you asked about it.

In the middle of this  _ random  _ journey through Dave Strider’s intellectual pursuits, you find something different.

There’s a slightly smaller piece of cardstock stuck between year two’s progress report, and year three’s. On the front isn’t even an ironically shitty drawing. It’s just the product of a kid’s imagination and a pencil. You think it might be one of the black-city birds you saw on the roof, re-imagined through the mind of a child.

And...on the back of that was a small white patch of slightly off-color white. You find the edge of the opaque tape and carefully peel it back.

A small lightweight silver key. Ridiculously thin and flimsy and cheaply made. So tiny you were afraid to remove it from the adhesive, lest it slip through your large clumsy fingers and be lost in the carpet forever.

You roll your eyes. God. It’s such an obvious hiding spot.

Grudgingly, you admire the irony of it. He even kept the  _ box _ in the same chest as the binder. You spent half a  _ year _ in the Land of Tombs and Krypton, and one of the first things you learned was keys are never hidden in the same room as their locks.

Where else would you have hid it anyway? Inside Lil’Cal’s stuffing? You wouldn’t do that to the little guy, no matter how unnerving this...variation of him was, and you highly doubt your Sprinterself would have either.

Leaving the binder open wide on the lid of the chest before you, you snatch the small lockbox off the futon. It’s almost painful attempting to pry the paper-thin metal away from the congealed adhesive, it’d been attached for so long. You’re starting to doubt it would be  _ any _ use in unlocking the box period. 

It would be a fitting final fuck you from your Splinterself if the damn thing got stuck in the lock thanks to residue.

Oh well. If it did there was always the option of a well placed cinderblock.

The construction was insulting. A cheaply made piece of junk, matching the quality of the key perfectly. It’s light and tapping on the metal told you all you needed to know about it’s thickness and durability. If the rest of the construction was consistent, the cinderblock vs locking mechanism strife was looking rather one-sided.

You pinch the key carefully within two suddenly clumsy fingers, and insert the key into the slot. There’s some resistance, expected thanks to the residue, but it eventually settles in with a click.

You turn it.

There’s a note inside.

_ Dave. _

_ If you are reading this, I better be dead.  _

_ Understand? Otherwise, you will be. This shit is locked for a reason. _

_ Fuck it. _

_ Guess I failed. _

_ If the game hasn’t started yet, you better keep training your ass off. Don’t slack just because I’m not there to drag you out of bed. You don’t understand yet, and frankly I don’t either. But I’ve seen it.  _

_ You are going to fuckin’ die if you don’t. The only thing I’ve  _ **_ever_ ** _ done was train you for this shit, because someone had to, and I was the one stuck with the job.  _

_ Fuck. If I could have spared you this I could. I thought I was going to be the player. But then you arrived on that meteor and changed things.  _

_ I’ve made arrangements, so don’t you dare leave. I got my agent on record as a guardian so let him deal with the legal shit. Rent and other shit is in a separate account set to automatic payments. There’s enough there for the rest of the lease. Sell my shit if you need more. I know you know all my passwords. _

_ You’ll know when the game starts. It’ll be real fuckin’ obvious.  _

_ If something happens before then… _

_ Contact Roxy. _

_ Tell her I’m dead. She hates my guts, but she’ll help you. _

_ I know I’ve been a shit guardian, but _

_ Stay alive Lil’Bro. _

Your hands are shaking. You make a conscious effort to steady them. You don’t  _ want _ to crush this one. You don’t. Lil’Cal’s nonplussed expression mocks you and you completely lose your cool and just  _ shiver _ .

_ Roxy. _

Beneath the note in the locked box was a thick wad of green bills you idly recognize as modern society’s not-so-worthless version of boondollars. And beneath that.

A picture. Faded and worn. It’s him, still growing and gangly, and without your iconic shades yet, showing off tired and sunken features and dirty jeans. Yet still clutching the timeless oversized doll that was presently sitting on the futon next to you. In the photo, Lil’Cal was sitting between him…

...and Roxy. Her eyes drawn and dark rimmed, clothing worn. Nothing like your Roxy. Like the hyper, bubbly, friendly girl you met through text and eventually in person who’d laughed and loved and smiled even with a broken heart who you failed because you couldn’t be who she needed you to be.

You turn the picture over. The writing was too neat to be his.

Dirk and Roxanne. St. Andrew’s Orphanage, New York. 1991.

In familiar chickenscratch, there was a LaLonde added in red ink, and nothing else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. Done with that monster scene. Next chapter back to the medium and then (maybe?) groceries?
> 
> No Bro doesn't know stuff. In this 'verse he thought ahead and had the arrangements made out of convenience, and the letter written in the original beta timeline in case he got hit by a bus or something. Dave just never bothered to look.
> 
> I don't know if there's anything out there in extended works about the other Guardians and how they know/don't know about the game, so most of this is from me own brain!


	9. Dirk > Arrive at Derse

You lie on the futon, the darkness of night and the void of space achieving some strange equilibrium as you straddle the two worlds.

It’s probably easier now that you aren’t doing anything with your waking self, aside from just letting the body rest after a full day of attention. If this is going to be anything like your life before the game you aren’t going to actually get much actual mind-resting sleep unless you either pass out, or deliberately force yourself to meditate. Luckily, the body still gets its rest if you turn your attention elsewhere.

You shift your center of self further into the Medium, pushing the faint glow of the moonlight further and further back into the isolation of the field of asteroids. You may have been alone all day, left to your devices to clean and tinker and delve into the gritty details surrounding a life as an Adult in a world you barely recognize, but...

There was always the thought that Dave could chose that moment to stick his head in. It’s his living space too. He’d already taken your stress-reduction tactics poorly, all things considered. You don’t want to make things even weirder for him.

Here you could just scream your frustration into the void if you wanted to, and none would be the wiser. You don’t—that would be extremely uncool of you—but the fact that you  _ could _ is a bit of a comfort. The sheer enormity of the situation you’d landed yourself in is dawning on you. You have to keep up this act—or figure out a way to explain to an admittedly precocious but emotionally volatile ten year old that his older brother figure is actually gone while you are standing there in front of him—for  _ at least _ another three years. If not perpetuity. You have no idea what will happen once the game starts.

Not for the first time, you wish Dave’s Bro hadn’t been an axe hanging over both their necks. You might have talked more.

You aren’t entirely detached, not even as far as you had been that time, as you tried to run from the star that burned anew in the back of your mind. The quieter, but still constant night-music of the city surrounding your apartment just becomes a low thrum in your bones, filling the silence of space.

Like two partitioned systems exchanging data queries, you consider the ground covered today. Not as much as you’d like, only two thirds or so around the circumference of the Furthest Ring. That isn’t even as efficient as you  _ could _ have been. There’d been multiple times throughout the day you’d gotten distracted by something in the waking world, and found your progress nearly completely halted. You’re just lucky you didn’t end up face first into a meteor when that happened.

Still, the fact that you’re closer to the point where you began the circle means you must be chasing Derse in its orbit. If you hadn’t been splinting your attention you probably would have realized that and adjusted accordingly. You should still be fairly close. While you’d never clocked your speed since achieving god-tier, you’d still been able to cross the incipisphere in hours. Even if you aren’t going at a half-panicked shit-Jake’s-evil-dog-grandma-is-going-after-my-friends rate right now, the planet  _ can’t _ have an orbital velocity greater than your current speed.

You check the map you’d been building in your shades, cross-referencing with one Hal--had created using mathematical calculations and what he could access through the game’s code. So far the scale seemed to be matching up, even if the debris field out beyond the Furthest Ring extends further than even he had mapped.

You carefully circumvent another set of asteroids, idly wondering how Derse doesn’t get hit when the reckoning begins and all these monsters get catapulted onto the unsuspecting planet to start off the end-game…

And then you see it. A large dark orb hovering in the shadows of a particularly large asteroid. Lights burn in thousands of windows, sending the rest of the complicated shapes into stark contrast. It almost  _ almost _ feels like  _ home. _

But then, you notice that the castle is  _ wrong. _

Where there should have been no towers…there are  _ eight. _

You heart shudders to a stop. You suddenly shoot forward, streaking through the air in a flurry of reddish-pink. Around the planet, to the giant chain, to  _ the moon. _

Four.

Four dreamer towers, existing on a mass you remember being  _ completely destroyed. _ The blast had torn through your body, still hungover from what-ever-the-hell kind of madness had infected your friends to turn them into candy colored versions of yourself. You could still feel a faint phantom tremor of fear shivering down your spine even remembering it. Remembering the pain and the utterly terrifying blank slate of death before the world had knit a new body around your torn soul and enacted its revenge in the form of puffy asshole pants.

Even getting beheaded twice hadn’t been  _ that _ bad.

Derse’s moon had been eradicated. Your towers with it. Now…

Faint lights shine serenely from two of them. The other two are dark, and almost look to be in disrepair, walls crumbling and shit. But they are still  _there._ You hesitate, hovering outside the window of the nearest one. In your head you know who you’ll find. Rose. Or Dave. Or. Hell.

_ Roxy. _

There’s _eight_ _towers on the castle._

This…

_ It isn’t a void session. _

You float closer to the window, hands resting on the sill as you work up the courage to peer inside. You don’t recognize the layout—you would know Roxy’s tower in a heartbeat--but you do recognize the small blonde head peeking out from beneath the covers. Not quite mussed enough to be you or Dave, and the dark saturated shade of purple everywhere pointed towards the last of your weird little ectofamily.

Rose Lalonde. Roxy’s Mom. Daughter. Whatever.

Seer of Light to-be.

Only.

You can only see a fraction of her beneath the blankets. But what you can see screams something is wrong. Frowning, you pull yourself into the window, gingerly setting down on the purple floor, the walls half filled with an unnerving scrawlings of a letter sequence. Once you cross the threshold you are thankful as fuck for your shades because you are  _ nearly blinded  _ and hundreds of sharp glass shards spring to life around you, creating a cacophony of light and sound that nearly has you staggering back out.

You end up clipping your hip on the edge of her bed instead. She shifts uneasily at the contact, the blankets pooling around her and falling off her shoulders.

It hurts. This close and you can feel the weak sense of a dying star flickering inside her. The purple and silver of a derse dreamer bleeds into red and gold, the moon melting into a mockery of Light’s sun. There are  _ so many sharp edges _ scattered throughout the room, as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to a beautiful stained-glass window and then just left them there, heedless of unknowingly bare feet or thin dream-slipper.

It aches and it aches, and it makes you keenly away of the broken pieces of your own soul that having a body again had begun to dull. But at least  _ you _ did that. It was your fault. Your aspect. You needed to live with your mistakes.

Rose didn’t deserve this. You hoped to hell she wasn’t sleepwalking yet, although the presence of the dream-writing on the walls didn’t allow that delusion to linger. If it was anything like the shards you found out in the debris field it would  _ hurt.  _ And she wasn’t even tied to the aspect of heart. She wouldn’t know  _ why. _

She shifts again, almost pushing herself up. You abscond back through the window and watch as she settles again.

You don’t want to wake her up. Not to that.

Exactly what that is, you don’t know. And you are actively trying not to touch the horrifying conclusion until you check the rest.

You dread the next tower. This one is a more red-shade of purple on the inside. You recognize the scrawlings on the wall, although you don’t know when Dave started working on that webcomic. Your Bro didn’t until he was in his teens. Another thing to ask about?

You haven’t been in his actual room, but it’s unmistakable. You feel a little guilty intruding on his space given the uh, relationship going on in the real world, but you had to know. You had to know so you could figure out how to  _ fix _ it. The rooms are a reflection of the dreamer’s real self, both literally and metaphorically, and it can’t be good to have that self showing up  _ metaphorically _ as hundreds of  _ tiny pieces. _

You’re prepared for it as you cross the threshold and the pieces burst to light, burning at you like tiny gouts of flame.

These are even  _ more _ mangled than Rose’s, if that’s at all possible. They aren’t evenly distributed but  _ thrown _ about, as if something had continued rampaging after the first initial blow, splintering already tiny shrapnel into infinitesimal fragments. You freeze in the doorway however, because you aren’t alone.

Not that you expected to be alone. It would be weirder if you were. But you had expected Dave to be in bed, not sitting on the edge of it, head in his hands, mumbling to himself.

Sleepwalking?

You couldn’t tell. He had his glasses on, which you knew from experience made it quite difficult to figure out if someone was awake or not. You’d had the Dersites thinking you were sleepwalking all over the place for months, just like Roxy.

Like Rose, his dream-jammies were all fucked up, blending into and out of his god-tier-jammies. The red and purple wasn’t quite as bizarre a combination as hers was, but the cape looked like it’d been sheered with a rusty knife or something. Glass pooled around his feet, which were lightly touching the ground at the edge of his bed. He didn’t so much as flinch or look at you or anything. Just continued to mumble.

There’s a representation of Lil’Cal sitting on the bed behind him, dressed in the usual Derse jammies, and oddly enough not the same shade of red-purple as the rest of the room. You’d think he’d be in your room. Did you even have a room? There were two more towers—yours and Roxy’s you hypothesize—but they were dark. Unused maybe? Your dreamself is all dead and shit, tied up in the god-like pjs you wear. But technically so was Dave and Rose’s. They are even still sporting their own divine sleepware. Sort of. Kind of?

It’s like something just…took the future and tried to smush it into a much smaller space and it just…broke shit.

You want to get closer to see if you could make out the words, but the shards weren’t just on the ground. They were floating, settled at various different heights and depths like some weird 3D windchime. It was almost like being back in the debris cloud again, and—

Wait. They  _ felt _ like that cloud. Like the ones that almost, just  _ almost _ reached out to your soul. That felt familiar and gave off heat in repelling waves. You reach out, brushing against the edge of the nearest red-green shard, a miniature ghost of star that burned at your raw wounds as you moved near.

It  _ hurt _ . But wrapped up in that hurt was feelings. Sensations. All blurred together in ways you feel you  _ should _ understand. Only they aren’t you. They are  _ Dave _ and that’s why you can’t parse them. You don’t have that particular encryption key.

Does that mean...all those stars out there? Dim and dying and broken, abandoned in the fathomless darkness...were _pieces_ _of your friends?_

You settle back on the windowsill, putting your back to the room in order to let the shards dim and give your eyes and your poor overwhelmed senses a break and consider the possible connection. You don’t like this. You don’t like this at all. 

This wasn’t just a restarted pre-scratch session, like you’d assumed.

Like the letter said,  _ Dave _ was the player. Not his Bro. Not you.

Yet.

You lean out the window, looking to the right.Toward Rose’s dimly lit tower. 

Then left. To the darkened windows.

Two extra Derse dreamers.

Eight prototype towers on the Dersite Royal castle.

This was a new session. Or perhaps the two mashed together, with the things that don't fit getting thrown off into the abyss. You aren't sure which option you prefer.

The pit in your gut yawned wide at the implications.

How will you win the game when two of the players are long dead?

Or are you the players at all? 

It’s going to be a long flight to Prospit. You have to see for yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna take the weekend off for homework again! Have an early chapter today since I won't be home until late anyway!
> 
> And here we see a bit more about the state of the game :3c


	10. Dirk > Be Dream Self

Only that’s a silly idea, because as you’ve previously explained, your dream self is dead. But your asshole puffy pants wearing self does eventually turn toward the remaining two towers. You are a little worried about what you’ll find. Roxy’s tower? And if it is Roxy, would she even _look_ like your friend? You aren’t looking forward to coming face-to-face with her splinterself, just familiar enough to make it impossible to ignore, but otherwise too different to allow you to pretend everything would be okay.

And what about _you?_

If it _is_ your tower, would it be a copy of _your_ room? Or Bro’s? Would it be the bed in the corner and the horses on the wall, half finished robotic projects on every surface? Or would it be the living room with the futon and marionettes and shitty weapons and plush rumps?

You know which one you’d prefer. While the dream rooms generally reflected the real-life layouts of your physical space, was that really the meaning behind it? Couldn’t it just mean the _space_ a dreamer felt most comfortable in? It’s not like any of you had anywhere else you ever wanted to be, content with your rooms and your computers and the connections and relationships you forged with others online, all of which felt more real than the reality you actually lived in.

You take one last glance inside, outside the tower is beyond the range necessary for the shards to be little more than glimmers, thank god, so you are only greeted by Dave’s distant silhouette. He hasn’t shifted at all, his mumbling joining the infiltrating sounds of the city to become a low hum in your ears. You wonder if you should try. Try to navigate the 3D maze of shards to put your hand on his shoulder, just as he’d done for you to pull you back from the medium just yesterday.

The thought lingers only for a moment. You push away from the tower, your fucked up game-self shedding any pretense of gravity and weight before becoming a small speck of red against a black sky. You just regard Derse, eyes traveling along the length of that thick metal chain and back toward the window studded homeworld of the carapacians. What would they think of all this? How would this … thing change their mythology? What did they make of the two dark towers?

Maybe you’d look into raiding a library to find out. The mythos of your planets had been very informative when it came to letting you know that your group _weren’t_ the heroes. You were merely the nobles, in a holding pattern to quest and prepare for the true heroes to arrive.

You’ll need to find a way to steal one of Derse’s hundreds of gossip magazines if nothing else. They were an excellent source of information, and you’ll need to find out if anyone saw you tonight. Derse’s moon was a decent distance from the planet’s surface, but you hadn’t exactly been careful when you’d shot through the sky like a fuckin’ meteor to get here.

Without the Condesce sticking her nose into things, it isn’t likely the Dersite Royalty would be willing to pull another assassination stunt like they did during your session. It should be safe. Even those changes hadn’t ramped up until right before the game started. The Dersites would have no _reason_ to be looking to the moon so soon.

You just need to not fuck things up.

It would be easy to just fly straight to the next set of dream-rooms, but the idea of being so exposed chafed at you, so you allow yourself to descend, just below the line of buildings that make up the surface of the moon. These two had been close together, sharing a facet of the polygonal moon. The others loomed in the distance. It’d probably take a carapacian several hours _at least_ to cross the distance by foot.

You don’t see any Dersites on the streets below, and while the moon is covered by the same mass of towers and buildings and spiraling architecture as the main body of Derse, here the windows are dark and silent, a veritable ghost town in comparison to its living counterpart at the other end of the chain. Carapacians would occasionally pilgrimage to the towers of their players, you knew this from your reconnaissance, but none ever lived in the surrounding cityscape.

It was a ghost town, built to house their “legends”.

Even going at a less frantic space--you are _not_ lagging because of the unease pooling in your gut--you soon find yourself hovering at the base of the nearest tower. While a shrine like complex is built _around_ the tower, you know there’s not supposed to be an entryway from it to the tower itself. It was one of the defense mechanisms the game afforded you. No one _should_ be able to reach the Dreamers aside from the Dreamers themselves, not unless prototyped with wings and even that shouldn’t be an issue until the game _started_.

Jack Noir and his cronies always seemed to be breaking that rule. You look down at your hands, remembering them covered in carapacian blood. A head on a pike, slammed down in front of the Dersite Royal palace as a reckless message.

In hindsight you wonder if that’s what set the Condesce off. If you’d thrown down the gloves like that, it was a fuckin’ billboard asking her to move into full on war.

Steeling yourself, you ascend, watching the cracked and pitted wall pass by before you. The purple stone is faded, almost grey in the cast off light from Derse itself, and where brick has crumbled away you can see a mass of chambers and stairs within. Where do those lead? There’s no door in the dream-rooms. No entry or exit aside from the cut-out windows. Why would the game construct a interior to a tower without exits?

Did they go down, down even further into the depths of the moon, where the quest slabs slept in a deep crypt? You don’t remember how the hell you got there before you ascended, too hungover from Jane’s hallucinogenic juju of a birthday present.

At last you reach the proper level, and it makes the unease in your chest tighten, and you lean in against the window sill. The color of the room, what you can see of it, is a deep dark red, fading into a black resulting from a lack of illumination. Even in the cast off light from Derse this place was shadowed, in part because this particular facet was angled a little further away from the planet it orbited than the previous one.

Light. You need light. Hands gripping crumbling stone you pull yourself in, landing smoothly on that plush red carpet, half expecting to be blinded and dreading that you won’t.

Nothing. No shards surge to life, but why would they? Your soul may be broken but you _have_ all the shards. The ones that you are missing are gone forever, leaving you with that phantom ache that constantly reminds you of the bleeding edges, and always waiting for smug red text that never comes.

The room is just empty blackness, lurking just beyond the edge of the small window of cast off light that filters in from the space beyond. Mechanically you reach into your sylladex, withdrawing the hooded lantern from the “tomb raiding supplies” Groove Row. You hadn’t really had the chance to empty out and properly weaponize your tech-hop modus before things went pearshaped, but it worked out in your favor this time. The gear you’d stored when exploring the tombs on your planet was exceptionally useful right now. Too bad you couldn’t port the gas mask into the real world. You would enjoy being able to breathe again.

It appears in your hands, and you set it down on the floor, a deft twist of the top has the panels blocking the light folding back in on themselves, filling the room with a pure white light and beating back the shadows.

Nothing.

Just an empty room.

None of the shit that makes you...you.

You recognize this wallpaper, the clouds and the spiral shapes. Standing in the center of the space, spinning slowly, taking in the blank walls and blank floor, the utter absolute _lack_ of anything personal or identifiable or well…

_Anything._

Just broken stones littering the carpet, part of the ceiling had fallen in on itself, letting you just look up and stare into the darkness beyond. You’d known the Dreamer’s orb was taller than the room inside was. You’d never considered there was more above. You pick up the lantern and then pointedly ignore the suggestion of gravity, rising and bringing it with you towards the broken section of paneling.

It’s a crawlspace, not unlike the one above your living room. There it had been full of old projects and tools and other miscellaneous items. You’d kept it fairly clean, if not spotless, because you would often spend your free time going through those projects for additional parts for new ones, or looking for something to upgrade, especially while you were waiting for your Dreamself to find something, or a friend to reply to pesterchum or...well...anything.

Here...a veritable swarm of dust and cobwebs gently cover every visible surface, and even swirling into the air as your motion disturbs some of the resting particles and sends them dancing through the light you brought with you. Your lantern bobs as you pause there, just...floating in the forest of boxes and crates, the shadows rising and twisting like a horrific mockery of the space. Red clay faces frozen in dust covered grins peeking out of the darkness between crates. Crumbled up and decaying posters. The gleam of red metal getting caught in the lantern’s rays. You take note of a life boxed and packed away to be forgotten.

You close your eyes and shutter your lantern and shield your aching heart and leave.

Roxy’s at least doesn’t feel like a tomb. You allow yourself to recaptchalogue the lantern, fitting it into the correct Shade Column by finding the associated rhyme. Even if it’s lacking the soft light from within that was the primary illumination for the first two towers, to your eyes it’s filled with a tiny nebula of stars.

They are nowhere near as concentrated as you’ve encountered with the other two dreamers, just a handful of large twinkling translucent lights, hung in the air like it’s a deliberate new-age decorative crystals or faerie lights or some shit. Why the difference? Did she have less to lose? Or were they all out in the debris cloud? Brushing up against the edge of a pink and soft blue shard, faintly you can hear her laughter again. It doesn’t push you away like Dave and Rose’s had. It...doesn’t hurt. Only bringing with it a bittersweet ache, because it makes you think about how much you miss her.

Roxy was a sleepwalker. You’d arrived to find her bed rumpled and the room empty and you couldn’t bring yourself to be surprised. She was probably wandering that void of broken shards right now, waltzing through a dream that no one else can see. At least you are _certain_ the room belongs to her. The shards were unmistakable, surrounding you with a feeling that _screamed_ Roxy to whatever sense sixth sense that allowed you to feel the fragments. If you closed your eyes and settled yourself in the pile of wizard hatted cat plushies and other cute things in the corner of the room you could almost imagine it _was_ your Roxy’s room. And all you had to do was follow her trail into the dark and you’d bring her back safe and sound.

But you don’t do that. You can’t. Because it _isn’t_ just your Roxy, and you can’t escape that fact.

The towering shelves of thick heavy books, taking the place of her mutant cat collection, fine, you could see that. It doesn’t matter that the titles aren’t whimsical fantastical wizardly adventures like you’d expected, and instead dense and wordy covering a wide range of scientific topics. It doesn’t even matter that there’s a telescope in the corner, pointing at a wall where a window probably existed on earth. It doesn’t matter that her computer desk is nearly buried in dark purple tinted papers, covered with an indecipherable scrawl that screamed shorthand at you.

It did matter that every available surface, from desk to bookshelves to floors, were covered in _bottles._

Some empty.

Some full.

Some are even _broken_ , actual honest to god physically _sharp_ _glass_ buried in plush purple carpet fibers waiting for victims to wander by. Dark stains actually spread out from these points, darkening the already deep purple to almost black. Similar stains litter the walls at various points, leaving scores and rips in the familiar wallpaper where they’d obviously been thrown and smashed, glass sprayed across the floor in obvious shrapnel patterns and then never touched again, adding to the minefield that made up this room.

You _knew_ she’d liked to experiment with the wine cellar her mother left her. She didn’t have the word Tipsy in her chumhandle for nothing. But the first time you’d seen her _drunk_ was the day you all had to escape to the medium.

She’d sobered up. Thrown out all the alcohol in her house and then never touched a drop because it could have gotten Jane _killed._

Guiltily you remember _how_ you’d known this. _Months later_ , while agonizing over keeping your promise to Hal and wallowing in your despair for having fucked up your relationship with Jake, you’d poured over his chatlogs. Trying vainly to find evidence that there was _something_ there that you couldn’t find in yourself. A goodness that outweighed the fuck-up that was Dirk Strider.

What you’d found was Roxy pouring her heart out to Hal that day. To _Hal._ Not you. You’d been too _happy_ at the time. Despite Hal’s fucked up manipulation and improvisation your plans had _worked._ You were free (you’d thought) of the Batterwitch.Your friends were safe. And _Jake said yes._

Roxy cried to Hal because she had no one else to turn to. And you would have never known otherwise.

Fuck. Maybe he _was_ the better Dirk Strider. He at least had the foresight and capacity to make time for your-- _his too--_ friends.

You take a breath. Counting down from ten. And then exhaling.

Hal was _gone_.

It didn’t matter now.

This was Roxy. You couldn’t deny it. But you didn’t try to squash the pain wriggling in your heart. This was a Roxy you’d never known.

Probably the Roxy that hated Bro’s guts.

Fuck. What were you going to _do_ about that.

(In another world you let yourself stir as morning light starts to leak through the windows. A glance at the phone you’d left on the arm of the futon had you groaning. You had a _plan_ . You _needed_ to do that today.)

The sunlight from the apartment even penetrates as far as your gloomy mood in the medium, and you seat yourself quietly on Roxy’s bed, holding one of her random cute catplushies and turning it over in your hands.

(You force yourself up, mentally bitching at the way your back protested against the lumpy futon. You were _sixteen_. Not sixty. Even if you were being technical, this body was still only twenty fucking eight according to your birth certificate, and in better than peak physical condition it had no damn right to complain.)

Fingers tighten around the plush. Then you make a concentrated effort to loosen them, smoothing out the rumpled fur and cloth.

You wanted to check on Prospit.

You wanted to make sure Roxy was okay.

You wanted to get information from the Dersites.

(You pull a map up on the computer, one you’d found suitable last night. It’s a little past the opening hours, and it’s within walking distance. You can do this. Another website tab includes the fruit of your research on a related topic, a shopping list. Your stomach twists painfully upon itself at the thought of food. Reanimated dreamselves didn’t need food. You hadn’t been hungry in a _longass_ time. You’d forgotten what it felt like.)

You...should stay here.

It hurts you to say that, fidgeting with the plush cat just to give this particular version of yourself something to do while you think. You want to keep moving. You dread to keep moving. You need to prove to yourself that they are actually gone.

But...you need to stay on Derse for a while.

You...want to see her. With your own eyes.

You used to have a knack for finding her, but even that connection is gone. You’ll just need to wait. She always came back. Eventually.

It’s...not like there’s a rush. You _need_ to train yourself out of that mindset. You _have time_.

( _You have time._ The thought bubbles through the partition, and you take a moment to ease some of the tension out of your muscles, slowly, and deliberately going through a warm up kata in the small space you have between the futon and the television.

You can do this. The green bills are on the desk. The directions and list memorized and in your head. All you needed to do was _go.)_

Three years.

You have three years.

You have time.

_Breathe._

The game hasn’t started yet.

It’s a whiplash, going from 200 miles per hour back to zero. From Endgame to before the game even fuckin’ begins. Every single little scrap of information is telling you there is nothing you _can_ do. Except wait. And watch. And learn. And plan.

Rushed plans lead to fuck ups so sit your ass down Dirk Strider before you screw up something again. Do something _useful_ and _think._

You need to do something with your hands.

There’s goddamn glass on the floor.

Dirk > Clean this shit up.

(Keys in hand, you close and lock the door behind you. Away they go into your sylladex, creating a groove row for household shit and you make for the stairs.)

Surrounded by floating pieces of one of your best friends’ soul, you clean the shit up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy monday! Enjoy a double length chapter!


	11. Dirk > Be an Adult

It’s barely a quarter after 8, but the city is already awake. You hesitate, hovering with your hand over the push-handle on the glass door that is the only barrier between you and the outside. You’d known your apartment was once part of a complex like this. A tall tower of flats housing a dozen or more other families, none of which you’d seen (thankfully) while making your way down the stairs. But it was very different to  _ witness it. _ To be able to go out the front door to find more than a small balcony overlooking the ocean vista. The view from there wasn’t even the best, almost always in shade regardless of what time of day it was thanks to the orientation of the apartment. There was a reason you always went to the roof instead.

But not here. Here you could go down, down, the dim stairwell (or the elevator but you had a lot of nervous energy pent up you needed to spend so stairs it was) down below the future’s sea level, down below the skyline. Down to the ground floor and this portal leading to another world.

Even this early you see a steady stream of ancient vehicles, large bulky ones, and smaller skinny ones, traveling either one way or another. Behind those windows were  _ people _ . Real, live people. That knowledge made your nerves flutter. 

Pull it together. You’ve faced down  _ Drones _ with nothing more than your sword (which is in your strife specibus, of course. No way in hell you were going anywhere without it) you can handle a morning walk.

Yet…

You hesitate. Another, heavier car rumbles past the glass set door, the rumble of the engine rattling in your bones. It was truly a different experience here, barely feet away, than just perched on the edge of the roof, looking out over the city of metal and glass. One push. A couple steps. And you wouldn’t merely be looking down on an impossibility. You’d be  _ part  _ of one.

You take a breath, and your hand curls around the handle. Just one push.

One push.

The sweltering summer morning slams into your face like a wave, coating your tongue and throat with a stronger version of the sticky acid taste that you’d been trying to ignore in your apartment. The building’s climate control wilts under the onslaught, not that you’d noticed it being particularly effective before. 

A couple steps.

The door swing shuts behind you.

You’d grown up watching movies. Some even set in Houston thanks to it being the setting for your Bro’s Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff series.

You’d wandered the streets of Derse for years, growing comfortable with the enclosed spaces and towering buildings, a big change from your single solitary apartment island located in an unbroken sea.

You’ve explored tombs that were darker and deeper and heavier, filled with the remains of your planet’s consorts.

You close your eyes against the growing light.. 

And then, you loosen your grip, tilting further into the you that pauses in the middle of picking up a piece of a broken bottle. The pink and calming blue-tinted darkness of Roxy’s dream-room bubbles around you. It almost seems as if her shards twinkle encouragement at you. 

You ease back, taking another lungful of that heavy hot air, but you don’t replace the partition between your two selves. The darkness of Derse, while forebodinge, worked to dull the overwhelming bright alienness of the stirring city. You can almost pretend the towering buildings on either side of you were just another example of Derse’s unique purple architecture. And isn’t it  _ ironic _ that you find comfort in  _ carapacian _ architecture, over the premise of human handiwork?

It was just a few blocks. You’d chosen some place close for this first expedition. A faint pain in your palm informed you that you’d unconsciously clenched your fist. Which wasn’t a big deal. Except for the fact that you had a  _ shard of glass _ in your gameself’s hand. You drop it, red blood staining the tinted material, but you don’t worry much further. The bleeding would stop.

You allow yourself to partially build up the partition. You don’t want your gameself doing anything more than just...zombie-ing out right now. Walking into a wall or out the window while you were focused on Earth would be embarrassing. But you don’t  _ want _ to leave the medium entirely. Its presence was calming. Steadying. Giving you a degree of distance between yourself and the overwhelming circumstances.

Red text flashes across your mind. You  _ know _ you’re going about this the wrong way. The smart thing would be a little at a time. Exposure therapy. Accustoming your irrational organic brain to the sensations and actions incrementally until they were less overwhelming.

Dissociating was probably not on the recommended tactics list. Much less  _ literally inducing a dissociation  _ using your fucked up unique state of existence. 

Whatever. It worked.

You pull up the map in your mind, rotating it to match your current orientation. If you had your shades on earth, you could have  _ actually _ done that, but you don’t. You start to walk down the pedestrian walkway, pointedly focusing on the double image covering the buildings. Occasionally a humanoid figure rises out of the dark overlay, drifting past you on the sidewalk and you do  _ not _ look at them. It’s just another black carapaced Dersite. They didn’t seem to care enough to pay attention to you, two lone asteroids passing in the night, orbits just off enough to never intersect.

You gradually end up picking up the pace, letting the sounds of the city rise and fall around you. There’s almost a rhythm to it. A song working in steady crescendo between the sound of your feet against the concrete, the gentle purr of the motor vehicles, the electrical buzzing from the fading streetlights, the distant murmuring of music from within some of the storefronts. It works to drown you in itself, folding you and everything you are into the living organism that ecompasses a staggeringly large amounts of lives all of which stand apart and work together, most without ever considering the other.

If you think about how many lives, then your steps will stutter. Your world has always been so narrow, even with all of human history and digitized culture available at your fingertips. One apartment. Two penpals. Three friends. 

It’s only the image you have burned in your mind that tells you when you’ve arrived at your destination. The Open sign and tinted glass bleeding through the faded and cracked brick of Roxy’s tower you’d been using as a shield. With only the barest hesitance you push it open, bell ringing in the shadows of a shop that eats through the illusion of the medium and you step inside.

The wash of climate-controlled air chills your face, such a huge difference from even the lobby of your apartment building, making your eyes water. The portal closes with a hiss of air. As if something had caught the door and eased it shut behind you instead of letting it fall. The city noise is muffled once more, held at bay by thick glass and soft, almost unintelligible music drifting over some sort of speaker system, giving the impression of a small respite in a storm of activity.

You don’t so much acknowledge the clerk’s chipper greeting as pretend you didn’t hear it, moving quickly between the rows of shelves where you  _ think _ your quarry is waiting. This is a smallish store, and you find your hopes sinking because you  _ had  _ intended to get fresh shit. But at least there’s multiple rows full of canned shit that you can see from here.

You survived on canned shit. Your research said fresh was better, but canned shit was fine. And this was  _ actually food _ so hell it was something. Your Bro had left you remarkably well stocked, despite the small caveat that it’d needed to survive from like 2020 till 2420 or whenever you arrived. So there’d been plenty of canned beans and instant noodles and orange soda stuffed into the storage compartments until you’d figured out how to add fresh meat to your diet. 

Which you still needed to do. You’d been hoping for fish. You at least knew how to clean and prepare fish. You’d seen fish and meat and vegetables in food dispensaries in the movies. You just picked the wrong store.

Your stomach twisted painfully, you hadn’t been willing to eat anything at the apartment because Dave needed it. Getting some canned shit would tide you over for now. You’d deal with it later. 

You pass a punch of bagged and boxed items, although you do slow down when your brain recognizes  _ chips _ from popular media. It seems like there’s a million different flavors, and how the hell are you going to handle  _ flavors? _ You don’t even know what fucking  _ cheddar _ tastes like, and that’s something you see on several brightly colored bags, much less something like...sweet chili and sour cream? What the hell were those?

What was  _ ranch? _

You shake your head in bewilderment, and move to continue on to the much smaller section of canned items in the back of the store. Except as you pass a particular bag--the sweet chili ones of all things--your hand snaps out and grabs one. For Science. Or hell, Dave might enjoy trying it.

A tin of something called “mandarin oranges” catches your eye, and you wish they had actual fresh fruit. You’d always wondered what real oranges tasted like. You loved orange soda. Jane had laughed at you when you mentioned wanting to try them because of that. You never got a good answer out of her about why. It was logical that orange soda would taste like oranges.

...right?

Your stomach clenches again. It had been patient over the last 24 hours or so, but the proximity of actual satisfaction was getting to you. The last time you’d actually been hungry was-- _ fuck-- _ before the game? After you’d gotten yourself killed it’d been reanimated dream-self city. And it was a good thing dreamselves didn’t need to eat, otherwise they would have starved to death of Derse long before you ever had a chance to wake up. 

You’d tried of course. Out of habit if nothing else. You’d had some cans of beans left over. Then you’d run out and forgotten you needed to eat period. Your planet was dead, like all the others. No fish in the Medium, and alchemized beans tasted like, well, tasteless mush so hell with that.

You snag the can of beans you found yourself staring at, green beans. Not quite the ones your Bro got you. Were they good for growing children? Hell if you knew. You may have read some articles on nutrition last night but you knew you had no idea what you were doing. Maybe you should get a couple different kinds so you didn’t have to go out for a couple days.

...but you needed to carry all this shit…

You don’t have a bag or anything so you just balance the can in the crook of your arm, soon it is joined by more of its peers of the black and “chili” variety, as well as a few more vegetables you don’t recognize because hell why not. The internet said children needed vegetables. And fruit. 

You consider something called ‘fruit cups’, looking over the small list of ingredients. You’ve never had pears. Or Cherries. Or peaches. And you don’t know how Dave feels about them either. But again, you needed fruit and they come in a pack of six so onto the precarious pile it goes. 

You do this a few more times, just grabbing things you vaguely recognize as things people ate in the movies. Bread? Sure there’s a loaf. Popcorn? You have a microwave so why not. You’re intrigued, because the white stuff you remember from the movies are very different from actual corn (which you also snagged some cans of and that shit is yellow in the picture.)

Your haul distinctly lacks protein (aside from beans.) That shit might be a problem. You go back and scan the non-canned shit, finding some nuts (you  _ think _ nuts were under that category) and add those to the pile as well.

You are running out of arm-space by the time you make it to the back of the store where they keep all the drinks in some sort of refrigeration unit. You consider leaving without them. You have enough. You have water. You don’t really have much more room to carry shit.

Running your eyes over the colorful labels and oddly shaped bottles, you zero in on a familiar translucent gold. You remember seeing that color almost shining in the light thrown from the fridge as Dave retreated from the kitchen. That first night. 

Apple juice, the label reads. And next to it--

_ Orange juice. _

You’re torn. One bright and sunny and orange, calling to every shred of your childhood fantasies that remained. And the other, gold gleaming guiltily in the night.

_ You’ve got time. _

You free a hand to open the cool-storage, even  _ colder _ air blasting into your face. You somehow managed to leverage the six-pack of juice bottles over your arm, and let the door shut with a quiet  _ squelch. _

“Goodness I’d wondered if you’d gotten lost back here! D’ya need help there ‘hon? You should have grabbed a basket!”

You stiffen, and then glance back towards the aisles. The clerk hovers near the edge of the shelves, well outside your personal bubble. But Roxy’s tower surges back around you in your minute panic, painting her concerned face in shadows. 

Your jaw works, and you manage, “I think I’m done. Thank you.”

“Oh alright. If you’re sure, hon. Let’s get these up to the register so I can get’cha checked out.”

Even her voice sounds more distant now. You follow the  _ carapacian _ back towards the front of the store, depositing the items where she indicates. It ends up looking like a lot more when you can get a better look at it. Some sort of machine beeps as she commences the “check out” process, sometimes turning each item before flashing it across a glass plane set into the counter. A scanner of some sort?

“So hon, did you find everything you needed?”

“...ah.” This would be a perfect chance to ask. “...no actually. Where would I find...fresh fish? And vegetables and the like?” 

She hums, “New to th’ area I’m guessing? This looks like a first supply run. Boss doesn’t like me talkin’ up the competition but there’s just some things folk can’t get at a place like this. It isn’t the biggest place ever, but if ya take th’ Eastwood bus to Polk street there’s a Kroger. That’d be th’ easiest one. Th’ others are all on th’ otha side of town and ya probably don’wanna deal with Downtown Traffic more’n ya need to. You want the real fresh stuff ya’ll need to find a market. They’re usually open on th’ weekends but I don’t know of any around here.”

You know what a bus is, and the idea of being crammed into one of those metal tin cans has you completely blue-screening for a good moment, only coming back when she finishes scanning the items with a “Ya got that, hon?”

You don’t trust your voice so you just nod. She rattles off a price and you use the excuse to focus exclusively on the green notes in your pocket. You didn’t bring them all. That would be stupid. But doing the math in your head (they are all denominations of 20s) you think you have enough. You hand over four notes, and she nods, gesturing for you to take the bags she’d helpfully piled on the counter for you.

You toss the change haphazardly back into one of the bags when she hands it back to you, and then respond to her cheerful, “Have a good day! Do come back if ya need anythin’!” with a distracted nod before you may your way to the door. The bags are heavy on your arms--but not too heavy. Just heavy enough to be a distraction--as you linger in the doorway. The sun is creeping higher and there’s more people on the pedestrian walkway beside the dark pavement and you just...blank.You manage to set yourself in a grim line back towards the apartment before the medium rushes forward and nearly obscures  _ everything. _

The grocery haul is a phantom weight on your forearms even here, but you just let your gameself shake, red gloved hands digging your shades into your face. You moved while you’d been distracted by earth and find yourself ensconced in the pile of soft cat-wizard plushies. Out in the peripheral of your vision you try to shut out the sights and sounds of the city that were no longer just abstract replacements for the gulls and waves but actual physical people and vehicles and it’s almost a crowd. Even here you  _ know _ how close some of them come and it puts you on edge, making your skin physically crawl.

For the longest time, it was just You. Then it became You and Roxy. And then You, Roxy, and your penpals. Eventually that circle expanded to Hal, Jane, and Jake. Even not counting the Cherubs, who you’d never actually met, that left the five of you  _ alone _ for over half a year. No consorts to run into or do quests for or shit. Just pesterchum chats and robots and tomb raiding with Jake and worrying about your relationship and worrying about Jane because she was making friends with the  _ enemy  _ and then worrying about when the heroes would arrive and quietly freaking out about that…

And then all hell broke loose and you’d just been alone. Running  _ from _ the Condesce or running back to her when you’d been punted out of the battlefield. And you’d barely had time to process the fact that your Allocated FIVE people had become like 13 and you’d been swept off with Terezi and Dave to plan--more like  _ brood-- _ under Krypton-filled clouds.

The point being... _ how the hell to people. _

You thought you had this shit covered. Evidently not.

Even with only a sliver of your focus remaining on earth, your personal space bubble shivers as pedestrians--some well dressed and others looking like they belonged in one of your Bro’s movies--began to trickle out of buildings and into offices and onto the previously mostly empty sidewalks. They don’t crowd you--yet, but you’ve seen midday cities in movies and they terrify the living shit out of you. 

Exactly like the bus, the idea of being hemmed in by bodies, with no room to run, no room to even draw your damn sword in defense unless you wanted to literally strike down people who are just going about their goddamn business…

You are catapulted back to Earth as the world blurs and you find yourself standing in the doorway of your apartment complex, clutching the shitty plastic bags worth of junk you can barely even call groceries as if it was life or death. You recognized a panicked series of flashsteps in an instant, and you hate yourself for falling back on that. 

How the hell are you going to survive if you can’t walk down the fucking street?

You think about the clerk’s directions. You think about the fact that even if you have a bunch of canned shit you are going to need real food and you  _ owe  _ Dave fresh shit after everything you’ve put him through…

But even considering that, you can’t find yourself to step off the small rectangle of concrete and wade back out. You’re tense and  _ this _ close to pulling out your unbreakable katana, and one pindrop away from absconding back to the medium  _ again. _

Not Today.

Time to go put away this shit and try and then maybe brood on the roof or something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter might be Dave. I'm not positive. Either that or a brief time skip.
> 
> Poor Dirk doesn't have the healthiest coping mechanisms either.


	12. Dave > Push the Boundary

It’s been 2 days, 16 hours, 56 minutes and counting since the Incident. The original Incident, mind. Not the time when you decided your Bro had gone mad. That’s only been a little over 24 hrs, although you can’t be bothered to find the exact timer amongst the noisy clocks lurking in your head.

You really don’t know how to feel. So you don’t. You stay in your room whenever possible, waking when the sun comes up, sleeping when the sun goes down, and you do fuck all with the rest of your day. Some talking with John, but even when you know he’s home, John’s not around a lot what with having to deal with overprotective parental overlords and an escalating prank war. Both of which pulled him away from the computer fairly often. Besides, you weren’t some clingy asshole. You were able to give your best bro space.

For the most part you end up getting lost in the bowels of the internet, watching shitty bootlegged cartoons, writing ironic deconstructions of them on your blog, all while doodling absently at the corner of some scrap paper. You’re amassing quite the collection of poorly drawn faces, although like the cartoons, these appeal to you  _ because _ they look so terrible. Maybe you should consider drawing more, you’re getting bored with the blog.

You thought you would have been ecstatic to have a full day yourself. No training. No mysteriously moving puppets. Just you and time and chill. No need to think about Bro at all.

Of course now you can’t  _ stop _ thinking about him unless you are up to your eyeballs in music or  _ sleeping. _ And even that didn’t work because you’re pretty sure you even dreamed about him last night.

...that wasn’t so bad though. Your subconscious must have been up to something, processing some sort of shit, because all you remember was the fact that he looked ridiculous. The actual fuzzy memory had long since faded, much to your disappointment. Pencil scratching at the paper again, and you glance down, finding a figure emerging below the face you’d tentatively named Jeff. It’s little more than a distorted figure right now but the half cape and Bro’s glasses make you snicker. You fold up that paper and tuck it into a shoebox you keep under your desk, with the rest of the doodles you want to keep for some reason or another.

You click the eraser on your pencil, tapping it against the plane of your desk. It settles into a steady rhythm, matching up unconsciously with the ticking in your head. You just aren’t feeling another shitty cartoon right now. Your homework is done, sitting in a messy pile you shoved to the corner of your desk when you started doodling. So is the next week’s just for the hell of it. One of the hundreds of timers is ticking down to the day when it’s due--3 days 7 hours 47 minutes and counting--but until Bro asks about it you aren’t going to say anything. 

You click through your tabs aimlessly, the sounds falling in line with the simultaneous tapping from your other hand. You find yourself just scrolling through your aggregation program, glancing through your alerts, but you find it hard to focus on any of them. Game announcements. Comments on your blogs. Some troll sniffing around your beatcloud account and leaving garbled keysmashes on one of your recent experimental tracks.

...huh. The football team won last night.

That makes you pause in your scrolling. Not because you are an especially avid fan--all sports end up blurring together to you--but you set up the alerts anyway.

Because if the local team wins…

_ Aw hell yeah half off pizza. _

You never turn down pizza. It would be a cardinal  _ sin. _

You wonder what flavor Bro’s going to pick this time. Probably something disgusting like anchovy. You’ll need to pick it off somewhere he can’t see then. He just got food yesterday (and _that_ had been a bizarre thing to find in the cupboard when going for the last bit of peanut butter. What the hell are you supposed to do with _beans?_ Nuke them? You like the fruit cups though, even if they _are_ kiddy stuff. You haven’t checked to see what he stuffed in the fridge this time. _)_ the other day, but it was weird junk, and even he wouldn’t turn down _half off_ _pizza._

It had all the food groups. Cheap. AND it gave you leftovers.

He’d have to be nuts to not get it.

...Right?

You don’t need to glance at the clock to know it’s around 6pm, and the pencil stills its tapping, and you use both hands to pull up the pizza delivery website. Bro’s password is child’s play, and soon you’ve got the order history up, snooping to see what he decided on…

And then are  _ aghast _ to find out there’s  _ no _ activity for today. 

_ This is ridiculous. _

Throwing away training--

_ Throwing away the only thing you did together. _

\--is one thing. The low level of panic you’ve been trying to avoid all day boils over into petty anger. You will not tolerate this neglect. 

You pick everything  _ you _ want, even pineapple and shit, and defiantly hit the “order now” button using the stored payment details. 

You grab your phone, pulling up the messenger function. 

_ i ordered pizza _

You weren’t asking. You throw it away without waiting for a response, back towards the bed as if it burned your hand

Bro knew you knew all his passwords--because he used the same one for literally everything. You had an understanding about that shit. If you don’t get an ok, you  _ aren’t _ allowed to spend money. You normally follow that rule.

But you don’t really care about that right now. You almost  _ hope _ it’ll make him retaliate finally. Just to ease the tension that’s been your constant companion.

23 minutes flat later, you hear the phone buzz. You ignore it. 

46 minutes and counting later you hear the doorbell ring.

49 minutes there’s a knock on  _ your  _ door.

Just one. 

You hadn’t even locked it. Bro could easily slam it open and stomp in and drag you to the roof if he wanted to. He wouldn’t even be angry. Just ice cold. 

But no. There’s just a single, soft knock. And then just light footsteps easing down the hall, back toward the living room. You are listening so hard you can hear the moment he steps from the carpet in the hallway and onto the linoleum in the kitchen.

Muscles taut, you rise, walking over to the bed. Your phone is blinking from the notification.

Just a single word.

_ Ok. _

“Aaagh!” You fall face-forward into the pillow, doing your best to smother yourself. Your fingers bury themselves into your hair, grabbing fistfuls and pulling until the pain in your scalp makes your eyes water. It’ll smudge your shades. You surface for air and pull them off. The shape makes you  _ angrier.  _ They were  _ his. _

Hissing you fling them away from you.

You don’t care.

What.

The.

Hell.

_ Just get up moron _ .  _ You’re wasting pizza. _

You don’t understand the anger driving you. You don’t understand it at all. 

The idea of moving makes you feel physically sick, the idea of going out there and eating...

You bury your face under the pillow again, and drown in the sound of clocks ticking.

1 hour 23 minutes and 4, 5, 6 seconds later, a knock sounds again. Once.

It drags you back to reality. You curl tighter. 

Another knock.

And then...the footsteps again

3 minutes, 34, 35, 36

Your phone vibrates. You extract your head from the pillow. Bleary eyes finding the blinking notification in the dying light.

The phone unlocks to the same conversation. Only under the Ok is another message.

_ Are you okay in there Dave? _

The burning anger gives way to cold, exhausted apathy.

_ no _

_ Do you need anything? _

You just.

Stare.

7 minutes, 45, 46, 47.

_ I put the pizza in the fridge in case you get hungry later. _

56, 57, 58

_ It was a good idea. _

_ Thank you. _

When you finally force yourself up, you find the shades lying broken on the floor. Lenses cracked and plastic snapped where they’d smashed up against the wall.

Holding the pieces in your hands. 

What the hell is wrong with him?

What the hell is wrong with  _ you? _

You just…

Want it to stop.

But the clock keeps ticking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately I've had a lot of deadlines pop up this week! So I can't promise another update tomorrow. If I manage it, then it should be another, semi-short Dave where the pair of them *actually* have a conversation. If not, then I'll have another chapter for you on Monday :)


	13. Dave > Stop Taking This Shit

Two days pass, bring the total time since the Incident up to 4 days, 15 hours, 21 minutes and counting.

You haven’t been out of your room more than twenty minutes _total_ since the pizza incident. Camped out like some survivor in an apocalyptic hellscape, fearing death or infection if you stepped one pinky toe into the space outside your established safe zone. You used the last of your stashed food last night, having been unable to restock with the junk Bro bought last time, and here 12 hours later the gnawing in your gut tries to push you to breech that forbidden territory. The living room yawns wide before you, and you don’t _don’t_ want go, so you don’t and park yourself in front of the computer and drown out your stomach’s complaints using enough heart thumping sound to even muffle the clocks in your head.

Bro has texted you. A few times. As if that single message from you was the lever that cracked open the vent, allowing the occasional trickle of thought to be thrown your way.

You’d ignored it the first few times. Wondering if he’d finally snap and come get you if you did. But he didn’t. You’d even heard those light footsteps stop in front of your door. Making you tense with…something. Anticipation? Fear? Were you _finally_ pushing things too far?

But…nothing. Just a frustrated sigh and some quiet mumble you can’t make out through your door.

Then your phone vibrated. And you scrabbled to check it.

_Just let me know you’re alive in there, lil’bro._

The bitter laugh that escapes was apparently proof enough, because those footsteps ease back down the hall, leaving you alone in your safehouse that was feeling more and more like a prison with every damn minute that passed.

After that, he checked on you again some time later. You sent a curt one word response. He let it be, and time just flowed on. The cycle continued to repeat every few hours, with nothing changing, for two days now. The last time you sulked like this Bro had gotten fed up with it within hours, and you’d gotten a particularly demanding training session that night, with a frustrated order to not do it again.

 _If you don’t want me around anymore just tell me, damn it._ The thought was likely irrational, but you weren’t feeling very rational right now. You channel all your energy into John, keeping up a veneer of normality for him, because it’s at least some sliver of normal for you too.

But eventually John leaves for a home-cooked dinner and you are so hungry even your conflicted pride throws in the towel.

You aren’t going to talk to him. Nope. If he wants to talk to you he can do it his own goddamn self you want nothing to do with this bullshit. You steel yourself and tunnel vision on the kitchen because the kitchen and quieting the monster in your gut is the only thing that matters.

You don’t even bother to go for a plate—since there aren’t any in the sink you couldn’t reach them anyway, blasted cleaning—and just go straight for the fridge. Pizza’s in the fridge. No way Bro would have eaten it all yet, he ate like a freaking bird. Besides, in your petulance you’d ordered a large because you _could._

As expected, you grab a piece of your unholy creation, noting that about a third of the pie was gone, even _with_ the pineapple which you know Bro doesn’t understand why you always put on it. What’s left will still last you for several more days yet.

Assuming you don’t hole yourself up again and just let yourself starve. Which is honestly looking more likely because every moment you are out in the open the space between your shoulder blades itches, like eyes are watching you, following you, _waiting_ for you to drop your guard and then some other shit is going to go wrong and tilt your world even farther—

Something else in the fridge grabs at the rug of paranoia and upends it, sending you mentally fumbling over yourself like a goddamn clown who missed his landing and rolled in a squawking heap of flailing limbs all to the sounds of an audience’s raucous laughter.

There, sitting on the otherwise empty shelf above the pizza box, is a six pack of impossibility.

The deep amber color shines in the fridge’s harsh yellow light, sending it sparkling like some long lost nectar of the gods.

You _knew_ there wasn’t any more AJ. You’d taken the last one the night of the Incident and then hated yourself for it. Because that meant you’d need to ask Bro for more. And he didn’t often fulfill requests like that unless you proved yourself or some shit. Scored a hit on him in training, got an above acceptable grade on your progress report, yada yada, incentivized progress bullshit. You usually ration that shit for when you’re stressed out.

He hated the stuff. Always got that nasty orange crap. Why the hell was there _apple juice?_

Unconsciously your small fingers hook around the neck of the nearest bottle and you pull it out. Eyeing the seal on the cap. Nope. No tampering. It didn’t look like a cruel prank. Just an innocent bottle of AJ waiting to be consumed and bestow its sweet, cooled deliciousness upon an expectant throat.

You glance up, dragging your— _unprotected—_ eyes back towards your Bro’s half of the room. He was hunched in the corner. Not paying you so much as a whit of attention. He’s got his noise canceling headphones on, knees pulled up to his chest in what looked to be the _least_ comfortable position a person could assume while balancing in a computer chair. Still no shades on, so you can see he’s intent on whatever is playing on the screen. Probably a porno or something. Maybe he’s researching for the next smuppet special.

You look from him, then down to the apple juice, and then feel the tight knot in your chest loosen just a smidge.

Instead of immediately absconding to your room, instead you drag your cold pizza slice and confusing as hell beverage, over to the futon. Lil’Cal is seated on the end, so you give the dude a fist bump before nibbling on the pizza, curiously trying to figure out what the video is from over Bro’s shoulder. You revise your original guess—there’s far too many clothes involved for it to be a porno unless it’s a particularly slow burn. The actors look vaguely familiar, so you amuse yourself by trying to place them in a particular series, but you don’t _actually_ have a eureka moment until the end of the episode rolls by and the credits begin to play. You nearly choke on your pizza.

Bro’s high end noise canceling headphones means he’s oblivious to your imminent death, so you grab your phone and text at him instead.

_*DUDE* are you watching soaps???_

It takes him a moment to notice the notification, you can see the phone blinking steadily where it’s sitting on the desk, stiffening like a deer caught in the headlights when he finally does. Hands unfurl where they’d been clasped around his knees and he pulls the phone closer, and you’re amused by the bewildered frown and how his eyebrows scrunch and it’s just so weird it makes you want to die laughing.

The horrible twisted up feeling is lost in the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. You just laugh and laugh, until you’re honest to God _crying_ and you hurt, but for once it’s a goddamn good hurt and you’re wheezing as you send another text.

_like seriously General Hospital??? that’s so far beyond irony its circled right around to utterly insane you do know thats aimed towards lonely housewives right_

Bro whirls around in his computer chair, giving you a glare that you’re fairly certain is _supposed_ to be one of the ones that usually made you want to shit your pants, but combined with the flush creeping up his neck and into his face it just sends you giggling again.

His expression changes again, and he abruptly puts his back to you, hunching over his desk. You stiffen, that was weird, wait no what are you doing, you need to get out of here--

And then the phone you’ve been clutching like a lifeline buzzes again, and you realize he was just _typing_ you a reply.

_It’s just for research._

Is he…

Sulking?

_research right and im a naive two year old waiting for santa to arrive_

_daddy is it christmas already???_

_can i get a pony???_

You don’t know what the hell is going on.

_No. We don’t have space for a pony._

_but bro i want a pony_

This is ridiculous. Your fingers tap out another reply. It isn’t your patented red text, but you just find you can’t stop yourself.

_i promise i will feed and water and exercise it_

_take it out for walks in the heart of houston itll be great come on what could go wrong_

_just a small white pony nothing big cutesy as hell_

_maybe even tattoo a heart on its rump if im doing this im going all out_

Your Bro lets out a noisy exhale in exasperation but you can’t see him. You’ve flopped back onto the futon, phone held above you. The vibration is instantaneous, and another text bubble appears below yours.

_Maybe next year._

_my birthday is near christmas_

_Dave._

_what just saying it would work as a two for one_

_I’m right here you realize, we don’t need to text._

_well yeah but this is working isnt it???_

_...I guess it is._

Your body aches from the laughing fit, but you almost feel like you are floating. It’s the most relaxed you’ve felt in...fuck you don’t know.

_seriously though bro soaps???_

You can hear him tapping another response, the clicking of the keys reaching your ears before the text bubble sets off another vibration.

_I told you, research. I’m flipping through a few shows, analyzing the modern day image of relationships and how they form and are maintained._

_bro you realize soaps are more like garbage scripted idealized unbelievable relationships that are supposed to distract unhappy housewives from their miserable existence right_

_god i cant believe youre watching that garbage unironically_

_even ironically would be beyond the capacity of my poor sponge of a brain_

_this is the kind of shit id expect from karkaaaaffdsdffsd_

The phone slips out of suddenly nerveless fingers, smacking you dead in the face and eliciting a sharp yelp from you. That _stings_.

 _“_ Dave?”

You’re rubbing the growing welt on your face when the light from the window is cut off. Bro _towers_ above you, a stark shadow that cuts through your blurry vision like a knife and has you sitting up abruptly, and scrambling back towards the other end of the futon and curling in on yourself, “I’m okay, I’m okay--”

“Let me see it.”

You stiffen but nod. He kneels down next to the futon, putting him at your eye level. Something about this causes the faintest easing of tension, even if it meant the tight expression was right in your face. The loose feeling that had been bouying you through your rambles is shredded by the proximity, but you are proud of yourself that you don’t flinch when he, shockingly gently, prods the tender spot on your face.

“You might end up with a bruise from that,” Bro says after a moment, pulling back, “But it does not seem like it hit your eye.”

“‘M fine.” You mumble, suddenly _intensely aware_ of the fact that you _don’t have your shades_. You have nothing acting as a shield between you and him, even if a flimsy one.

As if he could read your thoughts, he asks, “What happened to your shades?”

“...broke.” You manage to get out, pounding against the ice that frosted over _everything_ . You hate it. You hate it so much. You take a breathe and _slam_ into it. “It was just--I was being dumb that’s all. Got angry, threw them, they snapped. No big deal. I just need, I dunno, tape or something.”

It would make you look like a nerd trying to be cool, but hell that’s what john believed you were anyway. He’d probably get a kick out of it if you managed to get a picture to him.

“I have a pair if you want them.” He says after a moment. You give him a skeptical look.

“I thought you broke yours.”

_Why aren’t you wearing them?_

You haven’t seen him in a proper set of shades since the _Incident._

Granted you’d been avoiding the hell out of him until he ambushed you with AJ. But it’s still hella weird.

Bro shrugs his tiny twitch of a shoulder. “They will work until we can buy you a new pair, if you want them.”

The silence is heavy.

And then you just nod.

“Okay.” He doesn’t say anything more, just climbs to his feet and crosses the living room. Bro’s puppet chest was pushed up against the wall near the speaker that was usually Lil’Cal’s preferred resting spot, and after a moment’s hesitation he popped it open. The pair of glasses are extracted quickly, and soon he’s handing the pointed shades over to you, “Here.”

There’s nothing different about them. It’s the same style as your old ones, because Bro literally just gave you his old shades when they got too “old” for him. But it feels weird this time, to be putting them on knowing these actually _were_ _Bro’s._ Not just a handme down when he got something better.

But you do, and the dark filter comforts you because it puts some space between you and the too damn bright world.

“Better?”

“Yeah.”

He nods, and then returns to the computer. You stare down at your phone. The traitorous piece of technology. The fall had managed to send that garbled keysmash of a message.  You can’t even figure out what you’d been about to say. _Do_ you know know anyone who enjoyed that shit? Maybe one of your chatroom acquaintances or something.

You stare intently at the phone. Then up at bro. Then back down at the phone. Questions bubbling up within you. Questions that have been itching at you for days. Questions you’d tried to ignore.

The moment passes and you lower the phone, reaching out and snagging the apple juice instead, cracking the seal and just letting that sweet scent surround you. You glance around Lil’Cal and find Bro has replaced the headphones, although you manage a weak smile when you notice he _hasn’t_ started another episode yet, just scrolling through his aggregator.

Once the juice is gone, you slink out of the room. You know he noticed. You’d seen those burnt orange eyes following you as you entered the hallway. The ease of presence was gone, and you find yourself oddly angry at yourself. At the phone. At Bro even.

You’d... _enjoyed_ that.

The exchange stares back at you, white on black, burning itself into your brain. Even once safely back in your room, you keep reading over those last few lines.

The phone vibrates. It’s a new message, slotting itself into a new bubble right below the last.

_Let me know if there’s anything I can do, okay? Just because I’m shit up a creek doesn’t mean you have to be._

It’s barely even 7 in the evening and you’re so emotionally exhausted you just want to sleep.

You hesitate.

You aren’t used to talking to him like this. You train. You spar. You prank (or be pranked.) You occasionally play video games and even more rarely sit quietly in the hallway and listen while he’s working on one of his less salacious projects. Sometimes if you’ve caught the right one you’d just lean your head back and close your eyes and listen to the music pulsing through the cheap plaster.

It’s just what you two do.

_training tomorrow???_

You finally hit send.

The seconds pound in your head as you wait for a response. It’s 9 minutes and 53 seconds before your phone vibrates again.

_Do you want to?_

The clock keeps ticking.One after another after another and the key presses match up with each squealing shink of a metal gear fitting into place.

_yeah_

You know Bro best on the other end of the sword.

_cant lose the conditioning you know???_

_after four days im probably hella rusty_

_gotta get back on the wagon_

It’s another tense 5 minutes and 15 seconds before you get a response.

_We’ll see how it looks in the morning._

The unsaid rejection stings, but you managed to shoot back an _ok._

Then you just toss the damn thing over your shoulder and onto the bed. You don’t want to know what kind of unholy ramble your fingers are itching to embark on after that. The ugly feelings dig deep into your brain, burrowing beneath rational thought and seethe.

Instead of dealing with that little gremlin _,_ you settle for musical therapy instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back to Dirk next chapter ^^ But hey! At least they talked! This was one of those chapters that took forever for me to figure out how to start, but once it got rolling it wrote itself.
> 
> You guys don't understand how much all your feedback means to me! I love hearing your thoughts and being able to ramble back <3 It's so nice.


	14. Dirk > ???

Roxy’s tower has become a sanctuary of sorts for you.

You’ve cleaned up the glass and the empty bottles, although the lack of cleaning supplies means you are at a loss when it comes to fixing the stains on the wall and carpet. But again, dream room, it was probably more metaphorical shit you couldn’t really  _ fix  _ anyway, even if it spurred a nagging sense of unease every time your gaze brushed over one.

You haven’t been idle over these last couple days, sneaking out by the dersite  _ “night”  _ and poking around the giant city-planet, amassing an array of literature that was making a comfortable little stack next to your pile of cat-wizard plushes.

Really, night was too generous. The city had its lights on perpetually, and even the faint brightening of the world when it faced skaia was missing. You just happened to notice that carapacian activity in the streets seemed to ebb during the hours in which the moon faced the void beyond the ring and decided it must be some sort of ingrained cultural habit or something, given all your research was pointing towards things in this iteration of the game session having  _ always  _ been this way.

The gossip rags would have been crowing to high heavens about the deaths of two of the Prospitian heroes, and all you’ve seen so far was petty little stories about sabotaging the mail between the two kingdoms, and the ongoing long-term preparations for war. Prospit’s moon is but a footnote, other than in an acknowledgement that both sets of dreamers would be responsible for bringing back the light.

Does Prospit have two dark towers as well?

You squint at a grainy photo in one of the magazines, trying to make out the moon, distant in the sky. But the black and white image doesn’t do much to show the illumination levels, especially since two of the towers would be on another facet, if it mirrored your own moon. You’ve actually never  _ been _ to Prospit before so you can only make informed hypotheses.

You’ve been through dozens of these. Analyzing all the photos to the best of your ability. Even scanning all images which had the moon in the background through a decently sophisticated photo enhancement software loaded onto your shades--you’re never surprised by the tools buried in the code of your shades. You’d always let your auto-responder have the initiative in that area--turned up nothing more than just confirmation that there  _ were _ four towers. Which you’d known already.

With an irritated sigh you just toss the thin poorly bound magazine to the side, grabbing a slightly thicker volume you’d been systematically going through before you’d had to set it down and breathe for a while.

It was just a child’s history book, written in alien, but familiar carapacian characters. You don’t even need the gift of gab to understand them, you’ve been reading them since you were old enough to access what remained of the planetary network back at home. The passage you’d left dog-eared is just waiting and begging you to return.

_ The Rogue and the Lost Prince. _

Just a fairy tale to tell young pawns who looked up at the moon and ask why two of the towers were burnt out, but one that sang to you. Of truth wrapped in allegory. A short but tragic tale of a dead prince and a lost rogue. A tower left empty and forgotten, until the heart returns. When a star drifts across the empty sky, it’s just the rogue wandering the void, searching for a shattered dream.

You  _ know _ it’s just an allegory. But the idea that Roxy might be looking for— _ Bro—you _ gives you hope that maybe a meeting won’t go as terribly as you feared. Maybe Dave’s Bro was wrong.

Maybe she won’t hate you.

At least you don’t need to worry about having been seen if they are used to that story. The gossip magazines occasionally make note of her coming and goings, and you notice with unease that her wanderings have lengthened substantially since you weren’t here to lead her home. Your Roxy was only ever gone for a couple days before you dragged her sleepy head back to the tower. This Roxy was last seen  _ two weeks ago. _

You try not to let the dead prince part worry you. You obviously aren’t dead. All eight of you would need to join the game in order to light all eight towers and fulfill the first prophecy.  _ You  _ weren’t dead— _ although Bro might be— _ so Roxy  _ had _ to be okay.

By that logic Jake and Jane had to be okay too but you can’t let yourself think that. Not yet. Not without proof. Why won’t the dersites so much as  **mention** the Prospit dreamers? If one is a witch and one is a page then you’d  _ know.  _ But they don’t so the doubt is still there, and you refuse to let yourself get crushed again.

You feel along the edge of the pages with your searching thumb, finding two additional sections you’d marked in your reading,  _ The Blinded Seer, The Shattered Knight.  _ Damn Dersite lore was dark. Befitting your screwed-up family, you suppose.

Maybe it was fate, the result of being tied to the forces of darkness in this rip off of a battle for good and evil. Even before this whole mess, it was the Derse Dreamers who got the short end of the stick. Dave’s fucked up childhood, you and Roxy trapped in a post-apocalyptic water-flooded wasteland. You don’t know Rose’s story, but you’re sure  _ something _ went wrong there. It would fit the pattern.

_ Jake’s Grandma was assassinated and left him to grow up on an island filled with murderous monsters. Jane was groomed and mind-controlled all her life by an evil space alien _ a thought whispered to you  _ And they are prospit dreamers. _

Okay, so maybe you’re being a bit melodramatic on the fated to fuck-uppery part. You don’t know shit about their grandparents’ stories either, so maybe you all deserve a piece of the fucked up pie.

You close the book with a sigh and sink back into the pile, staring up at the ceiling—or rather the blue and pink shards that spun idly by above you, overlain with the gentle moonlight and sounds of the sleeping city in another world. You didn’t bother to pretend to sleep this time, it’s easy to portion off attention for more stationary projects like researching. If one was through books and the other through shitty modern popular culture in an attempt to get some sort of grasp on how the hell to adult, they were easily separated. And honestly it was rather interesting to note the departures from the past you’d previously studied. Even before Betty Crocker renounced her disguise on Re-Branding Day, her corporate tendrils had a long reach and had warped much of the popular media in this era.

It was just...research.

_ Research _ .

You feel a flush creeping up your neck as you remember that interaction. It had been so… _ odd _ to see Dave laughing so freely, even if it was at your expense. It made you think of the bright smile and smooth cascade of words you’d watched over and over again on grainy television interviews, of  _ your _ Bro during the start of his career, before Re-Branding Day and the subversive political commentary and underground rebellion. Back when he was just following a passion for creation and ironic humor, and just wanted so desperately to let the rest of the world in the joke.

You’d seen the later years in the too scrawny, tired,  _ resigned _ teenager you’d met in the land of tombs and krypton. You’d seen someone broken and reluctantly reforged, trapped in a fate he didn’t want but was going to have to finish anyway since no one else had, as he put it, bullshit predestined welsh powers and a fancy sword. But earlier… for just that moment, when you’d turned around to look at your splinter’s little brother, you’d seen that same carefree smile.

Fuck. Guess you needed to figure out how to make him laugh more.  

Giving him your splinterself’s shades had been...an impulse decision. But it felt right. You knew eventually he would find his own style somehow--the aviators he sported in your past were eerily reminiscent of his future in the same way his Bro matched yours. Your fingers linger on the reinforced frames resting on your nose, well aware that the weight on your gameself is what allowed your wakingself to brush off the loss so easily. Some things were universal.

But for now, if that weight and barrier worked to fill the aching feeling of something  _ missing _ , that’s all that mattered. 

The computer screen bleeds into your vision as the two worlds blur together, although its more you aren’t holding them apart as stringently as you were previously. You have your Splinterself’s Legal Shit binder open on the desk, phone, sitting quietly on the edge, no notifications.

The spatial difference between essentially lounging in a pile of cat-wizards, and sitting ram-rod straight in a computer chair isn’t lost on you, but it’s easily compartmentalized and stored away. You’re getting pretty good at this shit since you actually have to care about potential narcoleptic zombie-ism. It’s a struggle not to tunnel-vision on things.

Not that it mattered right now, the time showing on the taskbar of your computer announced it to be too late to be considered evening anymore. Dave  _ should _ be in bed if he actually wanted a training session in the morning. You could space out all you want.

You aren’t sure what you’re going to do about that yet, but it’s a bridge you’ll cross when you get there. If he  _ wants _ one, now that you both aren’t one-step away from exhaustion, you don’t really see  _ why not. _ It’s not like he won’t benefit from the conditioning in the future, and  _ you _ can’t afford to let your skills rust either, and need to figure out how to apply them to a whole new set of reach and speed variables. 

Kids in this age took self-defense classes didn’t they? You vaguely remember seeing some scenes set in such a setting during your research. It was just a plus that you didn’t need to pay  _ someone else _ to teach them.

That thought makes you sigh and brings your thoughts back to the Legal Shit in front of you, leaving a corner of your mind working through the carapacian histories, although right now it’s just some fluff pieces about derse itself.

You eventually identified these particular pages as bank statements and managed to track down the corresponding web-app bookmarks in this clusterfuck of an organizational system. You still haven’t found shit when it comes to legal identification cards or payment methods, barring the wad of cash in the trunk.

How the hell did your splinterself operate all this shit? It gives you a headache just trying to decipher it all. There’s several different sources of income, going to multiple accounts, and you know fuckall about them aside from extremely unhelpful notes attached to the transactions. The largest is obviously the puppet porn website--you’d found it in the aggregator fairly quickly and spent an...interesting few hours exploring. You admire the dedication to the craft, but you aren’t sure you quite share the enthusiasm. 

So many ventures, some  _ HUGE _ and others barely a trickle. He had his fingers in a lot of pies. It makes you wonder what spurred this level of entrepreneurship. The more you dig into the records, the more of a pattern you see. A burning  _ drive _ to always have a contingency, should one of the projects not pan out, and many didn’t. A giant spiral of safety nets for safety nets.

You think back to the photo packed carefully in a lockbox, and what the words on the back meant.

All originating from a child who had nothing, who reached and aggressively planned and  _ built _ to help him survive in a world where money actually mattered, so he would never have to worry about having nothing again.

You have a hard time seeing money as anything more than an abstraction. A relic of a dead civilization. To him, wouldn’t it have been everything? You’d never been at risk of getting evicted, because landlords didn’t exist. Utilities? Whatever. Food? Bro had you covered, and eventually you were able to make due yourself. 

But this world was  _ different. _

You had to get in contact with the banks somehow and figure out how to access this shit. Even if the essentials are taken care of, you’re gonna need parts. You promised Dave a new pair of shades. And you highly doubt that wad of cash was supposed to last  _ three years. _ After having seen the grocery cost and then extrapolating it out over that length of time, even if you’d overpaid that was  _ not _ going to cover it forever.

The letter said his Agent would take care of shit for Dave. You have no idea who the hell the agent is, aside from a number in his--your--phone, nor are you willing to contact them and ask. As far as the world was concerned, Dirk Strider is still alive.

Even if it’s not the proper one. It’ll have to make do.

You are in the process of checking the faq for one of the bank websites--Compass Bank--when you hear something. The gentle singing of Roxy’s shards has been a steady companion to you, even from across worlds, and something’s  _ off.  _ Your waking self stops mid scroll as the world bleeds shadowed purple, blue and pink, your gameself stiffening with tension. The shards sparkle on the edge of your senses, sharp and cutting where they’ve always been welcoming. Not repulsing you like Dave’s but just enough that it puts you on edge, a warning, a shout, a plea--

A shadow hovers in the window. Tall and willowy, the derse-dreamer jammies bleeding into dark blue, and far, far too small and clinging to curves she hadn’t had the chance to grow into before.

But it’s the dark rimmed eyes that get you. Open and hard, glittering like faceted stones in the agitated blue and pink light thrown by the tattered pieces of her soul.

_ “Y-you--” _

The words hiss out through clenched teeth and you spring to your feet, books forgotten. The hostility ringing around you, echoed and  _ amplified _ by the fear radiating off the shards. The cold depths of oblivion, washing down and through and around you. The stained purple wallpaper around the window begins to bleed to black.

_ She was awake. _

_ " _ _ G-gyet ooout."  _ She slurs, staggering forward, almost tripping on the crumbling stone window sill despite the fact that she was _floating._ Hand outstretched and reaching toward you, crooked beckoning. The soul shards weep around her, the previously peaceful colors pulsating a deep dark blue, almost black as she neared, " _Nyot heeere. I caan't--cat--not aginican't"_

You refuse to react. You refuse to show her how much your heart is breaking behind your mask. You just stand there, a marble statue in pink and red, surrounded by ridiculous wizard cats. You raise your head, locking eyes with her, stiff and cool and completely and utterly blank.

"Roxy..."

She staggers toward you, swaying on her feet as they touch down on the stained carpet. You are still taller than she is, you note distantly, but not by much. Her fists clench and come up as if to sock you in the face, but she stumbles forward, and you catch her on reflex. 

She's a weight in your arms and she trembles, her fist digging into your clothes.

" _Diirk. Please."_ She whispers, " _gyet out. gyet out. gyretoutofmyhead"_

The shards surrounding you both scream in anguish--

And then there's a terrible, terrible pain. A sword through your chest, blood dripping in rivulets down the familiar curve of the blade. Your blade. The unbreakable katana.

This--

doesn't make sense.

Roxy's eyes are bloodshot and blurred with tears, and she lets you fall.

In another world, your 28 year old body stiffens, teeters, and you fall.

Distantly, a muffled clock tolls.

A pendulum swings.

Bottles smash around you and all you can hear is Roxy crying.

And.

Then.

Again.

You die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...whelp. 
> 
> Would you...believe me if I say that *wasn't* supposed to happen? 
> 
> Seriously. He was supposed to abscond when she got there. Then decided he didn't want to.


	15. Dirk > Revive

You wake with an instinctive gasp.

The tolling of the clock reverberates in your head, sending tremors through your body as your death is judged and the answer reverberates in your bones.

_ Just. _

The taste of copper fills your mouth and you push yourself onto you side, coughing to clear the liquid from your lungs.

_ Just. _

You may not  _ need _ to breathe, but damn the remnant of your lizard brain still flips the fuck out when you  _ can’t. _

_ Just. _

Everything is numb. You feel  _ cut off.  _ The ambient background music you’ve grown accustomed to is  _ utterly silent _ , leaving you alone and echoing in your head. No distant city sounds. No hum of Roxy’s shards. No—

_ Roxy. _

Blood trailing in rivulets down a blade, tip protruding from your chest.

If you’d  _ ever _ eaten anything in this body, you’d be throwing up right now with how twisted up that memory leaves you. Instead you just retch quietly, shoulders trembling.

You can’t see anything.  The tower is black and empty.

If the answer is  _ Just...why are you still here? _

You know without being able to tell the color. It’s yours. Deep red and empty, with a boxed up crypt above your head.

You curl up upon yourself. You don’t know  _ how  _ you got here. You  _ don’t care. _

You can still hear her crying, in your head. It echoes in the silence, growing louder and louder.

What did you  _ do? _

_ What did  _ **_he_ ** _ do? _

Fuck.

The  _ Just _ judgement reverberates through your  _ soul. _ Scarring it with the utter knowledge that  _ whatever it was,  _ it’s  _ your  _ responsibility.

You hurt in a way you aren’t sure how to quantify. It isn’t even the blade wound—if you were even conscious again that roadblock would have healed to nothing more than a phantom memory and a bloodstain that would eventually fade from the self-cleaning and mending nature of the god jammies.

You just... You’re so aware of your  _ edges _ , all sharp and freshly broken. You want to escape to the dubious shelter of your Splinterself, and wrap the edges up in the physicality of a body, but you…

You can’t.

“ _ Shit.”  _ The hiss of air escapes and you reach for that corner of yourself, the burning star of contaminated Houston air and responsibility and shit—

And you just find another broken edge, small red shards bleed around you, where before there was none. Shattered by the death you’d somehow managed to fucking escape.

_ Fuck. _

Not good. Not good. Not good.

_ Shitshitshit. _

You don’t think he’d forgive you if he had to find your body on the floor again. Not after that night. Fuck. This time he can’t even drag you back out of the Medium to chew you out.

You push yourself to your feet. Managing a set of stuttering steps towards the window. You  _ weren’t _ hurt. It was all in your head. Pull your goddamn self together, Dirk. Despite the judgement,  _ you aren’t dead. _

Roxy…

Goddamn you need to figure out what happened between you two before you even go  _ near  _ her again if she’s going to  _ stab  _ you.

_ A Rogue and a Dead Prince. _

_ Fuck. _ You needed to steal that book again. This puts the whole fuckin’ story in a new light.

And what about  _ Dave?  _ Is he going to stumble across his Bro’s corpse in the morning? You don’t think so--the disperate selves were  _ separate _ and injuries never transferred. Did it break off into another splinter and you’ll just have to trust it’ll be fine? Fuck you don’t know. You were just starting to get the hang of shit and had decided to try and make him laugh more and then something like  _ this _ happens?

You found the splinter in the debris cloud. A splinter is a piece of a whole. If the body isn’t goddamn dead, could you find another one? There were  _ thousands _ of them out there, and of the ones you passed  _ only _ that one had been near enough to your soul to latch on to you.

Fuck it, you had to try. You couldn’t just  _ leave _ Dave like that.

You freeze as something blocks your way although you have no idea where the hell you are going to go. You immediately flash to another figure, to Roxy’s dark rimmed eyes and ugly snarl. But no. No, that’s wrong, because it’s not darkening the window, in fact doing the exact opposite, sending the whole portal glowing with a pulsing red and green light, like some kind of fucked up Christmas tree.

You…can’t…tell what it is. It’s trying to say something. You know it is. It’s moving agitatedly, gesturing, the voice so goddamn distorted, and the shape only vaguely humanoid. The only thing you can make out for sure is a splotch of darker coloring in the luminescent mass, around where a head would be on a person.

There’s no tail, and you’ve only ever seen that kind of strobelight effect on the hyperactive healer sprite that had bounced in and out of the battle healing you, but…

“…Hal?”

You uncurl your raw and aching edges and let them stretch, brushing up against the essence of the thing and…

…No. No it isn’t Hal. Its heat and metal and fur and feathers and a faint desperate hope. 

There’s an orange flash in the corner of your shades.  _ Pesterchum. _

You navigate the display to find a waiting friend request.

turntechGodhead [TG] wants to add you as a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short but weeeeeell... *waves* Shit happened
> 
> Honestly I have more but the pacing felt off, so it needs reworking. This feels like a good place to stop for now :3c


	16. Dirk > Accept the Inevitable

You don’t have time for this.

You have to get to Dave, somehow.

You can’t be wasting time with this...thing.

It was obviously some sort of game construct, you’d almost say a sprite. You hadn’t seen anything else in game that exhibited the ...quite so artificial nature of the sprites. Every other agent, every other structure, had a sense of cohesion to it. A sense of belonging within the environment it was created in. Not kernel sprites.

Glowing, floating, incorporeal unless they wished otherwise...they were obviously a part of the game. 

As such they had access to the game interface in a way none except players did. 

It shouldn’t surprise you that this one could access pesterchum. Even Hal had continued to communicate through your own chumhandle for a time after being prototyped into ARquiusprite. It had just been a convenient means of long-distance communication.

And that username…

It wasn’t one of your friends. You’ve never seen that particular handle before. Did that actually matter? Did any of this actually matter? What the hell was a sprite doing here??? 

The sprite is growing impatient. It’s distorted voice bubbles up again, cascading around you in a manner you can clearly tell is annoyed. It gestures at you with wide waving sweeps, and the friend request refreshes.

turntechGodhead [TG] wants to add you as a friend.

Fine. Whatever. You jab the accept button, but fix the sprite a stern glare. “Fine. But we talk while I fly.”

You need to do  _ something _ anyway. You don’t even fucking know if it’ll work. Raring off beyond the furthest ring, plunging headfirst into the nebulae where you first found the connection to your splinterself. You make to move around the pulsating light, but it shudders in agitation, puffing itself up to fill the entire window. You think you can see details for a moment. A claw. A coat. Some weird pattern where the emblem on a dreamer’s jammies would be. But they don’t stay long, lost in the shifting color. Bits and flecks of data are drifting off the edges of the mass.

The notification flashes again, a window pulling up in the screen of your shades, overlaying the shifting colored light

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT]

turntechGodhead [TG]: thank frog i can still access this   
turntechGodhead [TG]: dont you dare go anywhere  
turntechGodhead [TG]: stop  
turntechGodhead [TG]: desist  


The colors pulsed irregularly, agitatedly with each new message, throwing the entire interior of the tower bathing in cast off green and orange light.

turntechGodhead [TG]: im calling a moratorium on all shenanigans right meow  
turntechGodhead [TG]: whatever it is you think you n33d to do can wait  


Your blood chills at the text color. That’s AR’s color. He’d changed to that very same bright red in an attempt to differentiate himself from your orange. You feel yourself stiffen, going very still, tense and coiled. Sprites were semi-corporeal. You could just elbow the thing out of the way and be out the window.

You could.

But something stopped you.

_ Something _ had dragged you out of Roxy’s tower.

It was a  _ revival _ mechanic. Not a  _ respawn  _ mechanic.

turntechGodhead [TG]: you were litterally dead less than five minutes ago just take a second to chill ok   
turntechGodhead [TG]: granted i never made god tier but it is supposed to take so long? i was legit worrying youd run out of lives and i didnt follow psycho mom around for days just to watch you die in furont of me again no that way is trauma city and all parts of me have had enough of that   
turntechGodhead [TG]: no more dead broirails please and thank mew  
turntechGodhead [TG]: ugh im just not f33line this furmatting give me a sec  


“Look--sprite--” You grope for words while there’s a lull in the wave of text. It was so bizarre that you just  _ accepted _ the fact that this one threw around cat puns whenever it found the opportunity. Prototyping did weird shit, it’d gotten an AI obsessed with MILK and MUSCLES of all things. “What do you  _ want?  _ I--need to go-- _ ” _

turntechGodhead B33 < there thats not so clawful  
turntechGodhead B33 < you dont need to go anywhere except with me im not letting you out of my sight while youre bl33ding like that  
It floats forward and reaches out a--limb--you want to say it’s probably supposed to be an arm--running the edge, tingling with some sort of electrical hum, across the space directly to your left.

And you  _ shiver _ as it comes into contact with the handful of small red shards that was all that remained of the splinter that had connected you to your splinterself, singing brightly at you.

The  _ heat _ that blossomed out from the touch was so familiar, although laced through with a cheerful playfulness that is so utterly bizarre. 

That shocks you cold. “You can see those?”

turntechGodhead B33 < duh  
turntechGodhead B33 < rogue of heart here  
turntechGodhead B33 < or part of me was  
turntechGodhead B33 < sprites lose our classpects except the most passive support shit but like theres a billion of those things out in the rim its like a crash course in sensory heart pawers  


_ ANOTHER  _ rogue?

“I’m  _ fine.” _ You draw your fists to your sides, taking a step back into the tower to get the splinters out of direct range. Without the contact they fade back into invisibility, although knowing they are  _ actually there _ instead of some abstraction of your heart powers makes you feel really uneasy. Those were pieces of your  _ soul _ that it’d just touched. You want to bundle them up and shove them back inside yourself so no one can touch them again.

turntechGodhead B33 < i dunno the more shards i s33 the more worried i get just look at psycho mom over there  


You let out a rough, frustrated sigh at the words getting jumbled up in your head as you try to argue back, and just decide to say fuck it and switch to text instead. It worked with Dave after all.

timaeusTestified [TT]: What happened with Roxy was something completely none of _your_ business. She’s not psycho.   
turntechGodhead B33 < i dont know man stabbing you in the back in cold blood right in front of me s33ms pretty psycho   
turntechGodhead B33 < ive been following her for days just a peaceful meandering sl33pwalk then bam flipped her lid the moment she saw you   
turntechGodhead B33 < those shards are bad mews   
timaeusTestified [TT]: It was justified.   


You knew it was all in your head but you could still hear those bells tolling. Undisputeable proof that Dirk Strider deserved that death. Hell if you think about it it  _ had _ killed the bit of you that was directly responsible. That splinter, your link to the body of the man who’d hurt her, had been completely and utterly destroyed.

turntechGodhead B33 < bullshit you were reading in a pile ofwizard cats   
turntechGodhead B33 < thats the least threatening thing ive s33n anyone do   


_ You accepted the responsibility. _

timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m not going to argue about this. It’s pointless.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m leaving.   


You close the chat window but the sprite surges forward, grabbing your arm with  _ something _ that had a surprising amount of force behind it considering it looked like a vaguely humanoid patch of fog. You could even see  _ through _ it if you looked too hard at it.

turntechGodhead B33 < slow your pawsitively furreaky deja vu inducing self down and listen to me instead of the yowling tomcats in your head   
turntechGodhead B33 < i can help fix your splinter shit before it gets worse  


You break the grip easily, the strength only lasting the few moments it took the messages to send. Your arm passes through the almost ghostly presence, sending that same electrified energy dancing up the skin of your arm, the sense of fur and feathers pressing  _ hard _ against your perception.

But you don’t move to leave. You doubt a random game construct would be able to help with your problem, considering you can’t even tell if it  _ knows _ what the problem is in the first place.

Restraining yourself, you reopen the chat client.

timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m listening.   
turntechGodhead B33 < rogue of heart remember?  
turntechGodhead B33 < stealing soul shit and sharing it around  
turntechGodhead B33 < sound applickable to the pawblem?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: turntechGodhead B33 < sprites lose our classpects except the most passive support shit  
turntechGodhead B33 < i know what i said  
turntechGodhead B33 < and i also know itll work  
turntechGodhead B33 < at least one part of it will  
turntechGodhead B33 < gotta love tempurral inevitability  
timaeusTestified [TT]:: So what is this brilliant plan you’ve been dancing around?  
turntechGodhead B33 < shit oops oh yeah  
turntechGodhead B33 < i need you to rip the sprite out of me  
timaeusTestified [TT]: What.   
turntechGodhead B33 < use your princey soul powers to claw out the kernel sprite so the game can get off my tail  
turntechGodhead B33 < its been treating me like a scratching post since everything crashed because i said “hell no i like myself now choke on a furball” and it threw a tantrum  
turntechGodhead B33 < we n33d me to not be a sprite to access magic soul shit to mess with the splinters  
turntechGodhead B33 < and id rather not be scrubbed out of existence because the game wants its toy back  
turntechGodhead B33 < sw33t and simple reprocikitty  


You can follow the logic that a rogue of heart might be useful in hunting down another splinter. Your class is focused on destruction--yourself, others, shit didn’t matter as long as you destroyed. Rogue was a much more support based class. You know you missed a lot of shit involving Roxy figuring out her powers, but you distinctly recall it described as stealing the nothing from things to make them something. Creation in its own roundabout way. But…

timaeusTestified [TT]: You realize this will kill you right? Sprites are made of either objects or dead things. It’s the sprite’s framework that revives you in the first place!   
turntechGodhead B33 < dead or _doomed_ things  
turntechGodhead B33 < impurrtant techniclawlity  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If--and that is assuming I can, it’s not like I have practice with this shit--I remove the coding do you even have a physical form left?  
turntechGodhead B33 < im dead if i do nothing bro at least this gives me the oppurrtunity to give paradox space a haughty flick in the face when it fails to kill me off again B3  


The sprite’s completely incoherent appearance and glitched out communication attempts is likely the result of the game’s attempt to wipe the prototyping. Everyone else was all screwed up, bits and pieces of who they are and who they were all slapdashed together, why  _ not  _ the goddamn sprites too? Remove the code holding the thing together and it’ll just all fall apart.

Whatever. If this shit goes wrong you can’t say you didn’t try to argue. You shrug and let the words fall in the silence, staring any anything other than the bobbing cloud of orange and green, “It's your choice.”   
  
The sprite lets out a pleased churrip-like sound and you don’t even need to glance at the chat window to hear the “purrrfect” echoed in the text.

You’re missing something. You  _ know _ you are. You have all the pieces  _ right _ there at your fingertips but they don’t want to fall into place. You  _ know _ players can be prototyped. Shit, that crazy healer sprite looked like someone shoved Rose into a wizard cat costume and let her loose in a rave. The first stage of  _ your _ sprite had been some random dead troll from another game. Given your session only had one heart player and that was you, this one had to be another troll. Or even two given it mentioned time shit.

Or...

The green and orange text begins to completely fill the chat window and you just stare at it. There’s a cadence to the messages that nags at you, pulling on a thread of recollection from a very important conversation. That, and the familiar heat radiating out from the weakened soul wrapped within the sprite code.

You really do hate stupid surprises. 

Fur and feathers and heat and metal. All wrapped up in a desperate hope.

If this isn’t Dave’s 99% sure he’s dead sprite you’d eat your cape, hood and all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh boy this was a pain and a HALF to format. You can see how the spacing is hella weird on davepeta's lines but i don't care any more I'm done just take iiiiiit.
> 
> I think it took me almost an hour to get this into a postable format.
> 
> For anyone wondering why davepeta is using Dave's chumhandle still it's because they are literally hijacking his client right now. One of the pros to sharing memories with a person is you know all their passwords.
> 
> Ya'll are getting this chapter on a friday mostly because I couldn't update yesterday. But after that it's business as usual, no posts till Tuesday. I'm unfortunately going to be internetless over the holiday, but I'll try to have something for ya'll when I get home o7
> 
> EDIT: AFTER AN ADDITIONAL HOUR I THINK IT'S ALL FIXED *collapses*


	17. Dirk > Descend

Was this a bad idea?

You aren’t sure.

You follow the sprite down, down, down. Out of the tower, down some stairs into the interior of the buildings surrounding your tower’s base. You couldn’t help but glance up, at the other tower with its dark windows and blue and pink shards and you suppress a shiver.

You want to ask ‘where are we going?’ but you don’t because you know the answer.

It was only logical when performing a task that could potentially cost someone their life, player or not. 

Instead you just follow the glowing cloud as he drifted ahead of you, leading the way. The further down you go the faster the colors shift from orange to green to orange to green, sending lights dancing against the purple brick. As off putting as the constant shifting colors could be,you are rather thankful for it. Without them you would be nearly blind, only broken by the occasional dimly burning electrical panels which were spread few and far between along the passages. You suspect there are actually more panels filling those empty spaces, or there would be if anyone bothered to maintain the place. It’s in just as bad, or worse, shape as your towers. Crumbling stone and uneven steps are a dime a dozen, and if you hadn’t decided to skim the ground instead of walk you might have ended up with a broken neck on one of the many landings that briefly break up the passageways.

At least such a death would have only been temporary, but after your last brush with the game’s conditional mortality system the idea makes you feel the slightest bit ill. 

timeausTestified [TT]: Do you really think it’ll work? Even if you were a player you aren’t one for this session.  


Text was comforting. It prevented words from breaking up the heavy silence that lay over the passageway. No footsteps. No words.Just the ever present hum of energy radiating outward from the sprite.

turntechGodhead: B33 < actually i have no clue about that  
turntechGodhead: B33 < ive been pawing through what i can access of the player data and everything im finding meow says it doesnt actually matter  
turntechGodhead: B33 < im still coded as a player even if the whole sentient walkthrough thing overrides that template  
turntechGodhead: B33 < tecniclawlity it should be a simple catter of remeoving the sprite template and holding the ball of yarn together long enough for the things to revert to the default  
turntechGodhead: B33 < i could be from the myoon as long as the slab meowtches my aspect itll be ascension city  
turntechGodhead: B33 < and thats assuming it does kill me it myight not  
timeausTestified [TT]: Fair enough.  
timeausTestified [TT]: You’re lucky you know the way. I died down here and I still don’t remember how it happened.  
turntechGodhead: B33 < furtune aint got nothin to do with it bro  
turntechGodhead: B33 < just taking advantage of my pawsome arsenal of sprite pawers while i gottem  
turntechGodhead: B33 < theres maps buried in the servers most people just dont know how to access them.  
timeausTestified [TT]: Sounds pretty useful.   
turntechGodhead: B33 < purrhaps B3c  


Down. Down. Down.

The hallway opens up, but the stairs remain barely wide enough for a person. You look down, noting the yawning darkness in the giant pit, with the staircase spiraling around the edge. There are actual working torches set into the wall, but a misplaced step here and youd have worse than a broken neck to worry about. It looks like a one-way plunge into a misty darkness.

turntechGodhead: B33 < hey bro  


The sprite pauses, the strobe effect of the cast off light nearly vibrates with some sort of pent up energy. You pause too, letting your feet settle on the ground for the first time since you entered the stairwell. You quirk an eyebrow behind your shades, but the corresponding head tilt must have sold the acknowledgement because it wasn’t long before another message made your chat window flash.

turntechGodhead: B33 < nowhere to go but down B3  


Then the sprite suddenly shoots off the pathway, hanging in the air above the pit for a moment. The formless fog shifts, arms--no  _ feathers,  _ remember? It’s probably wings--stretch away from the main mass, and then they tuck in close, and he  _ dives.  _ The fog  _ shivers _

The joyous shriek is audible even through the distortion, and reverberates in the large shaft, taking the colored light with it and leaving you doused in the comparatively  _ dull _ yellow torch lights as a result.

What the hell. Why not.

He’s asking for it.

The force of your jump propels you into space, the wind of your passing ringing in your ears,tugging at your cape and hood. Gravity becomes nothing more than an afterthought and you kick into gear. You chase that distant orange and green light, plunging down, and down, and down. 

The sprite was fast. But you’ve crossed the incipisphere in  _ hours. _

You blow past him with a smirk and small gesture, tossing your own message into the ring.

timeausTestified [TT]: Keep up now.  
turntechGodhead: B33 < ch33tah! Using your god-pawers arent fair  
timeausTestified [TT]: Says the one who took off before the race even started.  
turntechGodhead: B33 < hey i gave mew plenty of notice its not my purroblem if youre slow on the uptake  


You can’t help it. The rushing air whipping past you, the thrum of competition, the thrill of the adrenaline racing through your veins in an utterly  _ harmless _ bit of fun.

You just let yourself  _ enjoy _ the moment and fall, speeding through several  _ hundred _ layers of spiral staircases and branching passageways. You don’t let yourself get too far away from the sprite, but you don’t let him close either, keeping the distance  _ just _ enough to let him think hes gaining on you.

You may be going to the crypt.You may be leading the sprite to his death. But damn it you  _ needed _ a moment like this. Like yesterday with Dave, just talking and laughing, a moment when you can let go.

Quite literally.

But the shaft  never levels off. Instead four shadows appear in the distance, suspended over a deep void. The stairs have long since vanished, and again you wonder how the hell you’d managed to get yourself here in the first place. Your dreamself could fly, you guess, and you’d lost your physical body at that point even if you’d gotten tired of wandering around in the derse dreamer outfit once you had the ability to upgrade your gear. But what about Jane and Jake? They’d ended up on their slabs on Prospit, and both of them had their dream selves assassinated even before the game started. 

Another weird thing you could chalk up to cherub juju shit, you guess. Just throw it in the box with the hangover from hell along with an unholy sugar rush that drove your friends insane and dragged your stoic ass along for the ride. 

Colored chains peek out of the darkness, purple, like the planet, strung up like some weird macabre version of holiday decorations.

In another session there’d been two. In another session you’d sat on the edge of a heart marked slab, clinging to your various communication devices and your friends in an attempt to navigate the clusterfuck of a situation you guys had ended up in.

In another session you’d died here.

But it wasn’t even the memories that stopped you cold in midflight, allowing the sprite to shoot past you before he realized what you’d done. There’s four slabs now. Maroon. Blue. Red. Yellow. Heart. Void. Time. Light. But they weren’t  _ entirely empty. _

Your seizure inducing companion squawks and pulls up beside you, the sensation of heat and fur and feathers surrounding you almost like a blanket, blocking out the small part of you that feels like it should be screaming, but instead just looks on helplessly

turntechGodhead: B33 < aw shit i was worried about this pawsibility

There was a body on one of the slabs. A large dark shape eclipsing the pink heart and making your stomach churn.

They are clad entirely in derse dreamer garb. Purple silks and puffy shoulders and slippers and all. But you recognize the upswept hair, the pointed shades, the build. It is the one you’d been trying to get used to in the mirror.

It’s him. Arrayed as if sleeping, with an all too familiar sword through the chest. It’s the one in your sylladex. The one you’d last seen protruding from your own. Dried blood crusted the slab surrounding him, darkened to a rust brown that stood out sharply against the cracked maroon stone. 

You never understood that. Why do dreamselves bleed? They don’t need to eat, and yet they can. They don’t need to sleep, and yet they can. They don’t need to  _ breathe _ , and yet you’ve often felt like you were suffocating.

A dream self is just another game construct. A second life for the player should they die prematurely. And yet…

The game took such pains to make it feel  _ real. _

timaeusTestified [TT]: How did the sword get here?  
turntechGodhead: B33 < i s33 youve got your priorikitties straight  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I just want to know how many copies of my katana are lying around, that’s all.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It cheapens the brand if it’s such a common item.  
turntechGodhead: B33 < right and s33ing another dead dirk skewered on a quest bed in front of you isnt a purroblem at all  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s...it just makes sense, is all. All the others had a dreamself merged with their godtier outfits. I don’t, so it had to be somewhere.  


You just hadn’t expected it to be dead. But that sword was the one that pierced your chest, and the bells had sounded.  _ Just. _

It  _ had _ killed you, striking at her true target using you as an intermediary. You wonder if you’d never gone to Roxy’s tower. If you’d found your way down here. Would this dreamer still have been dreaming?

turntechGodhead: B33 < …  
turntechGodhead: B33 < you really arent him huh  


You tear your eyes away from the body, just an empty container. It had even less value than the splinter that had nestled itself into your soul. That had at least let you bridge the gap between the game and earth. This...was just a cast off. Probably intended to have been smashed together with you in an effort to make you fill that Dirk’s place.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Did you hope I was?  
turntechGodhead: B33 < ...no i knew  
turntechGodhead: B33 < i watched him die  
turntechGodhead: B33 < I dont know if you noticed but not even the game can bring back the dead without very specific circumstances and most of those arent purrmenant  
turntechGodhead: B33 < youre to him as I am to Dave at this point we started from the same blueprint and then hisstory and our choices dictated who we came to be  
turntechGodhead: B33 < i wouldnt wish you to be stuffed in the template of a dead man any more than I envy psychomom her existence   
turntechGodhead: B33 < mangled almost beyond recognition  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s still Roxy in there. I know it.  


turntechGodhead: B33 < the shards in the tower were more your roxy than psycho mom was dont kit yourself  


You say nothing because he’s right and you hate yourself for it.

turntechGodhead: B33 < come on i need you to move him  
turntechGodhead: B33 < i dont think i can stay corporal long enough right meow to do it myself  
timaeusTestified [TT]: There’s another option, isn’t there?   


You gesture to to the other three floating slabs. Blue, gold, and red. Void, Light, and Time.

Time.

turntechGodhead: B33 < theres already a knight of time running around bro  
turntechGodhead: B33 < we n33d the rogue  


It takes even less work than you expect. The moment you drift down to touch the body it shatters. A release of heat and metal, similar but quite the same to the feel you’ve gotten off Dave’s shards--and more recently, his sprite--plush fabric and mirrored glass. The red sparks of data dissolves and swirls around you, sinking into your exposed skin and slotting itself neatly into place in one of the unused partitions of your mind.

Soon only the sword remained, lying across the slab as if in some macabre funerary topper. 

You don’t know what to think.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Why didn’t he ascend?  


The sprite chirps a question back at you.

timaeusTestified [TT]: You said being THE player doesn’t matter. If he died on the quest bed shouldn’t it have worked for him, the way it should work for you? It’s one big heart aspect reunion down here.   
turntechGodhead: B33 < mew dont n33d me to answer that bro  


...no you suppose you don’t. Because while the splinter had been a dying star, this was nothing more than ash in your hands. You do what you always do, and clean your shit up.

You pick up the sword by the ribbon wrapped hilt. Dark blue, they’d been hidden by the body before, the hilt having been plunged in from behind at some point. You attempt to add it to your strife syllabus just so you can get it out of the way, but it throws a duplicate item error.

So you just, move it. It settles comfortably on Roxy’s quest bed, the fabric on the hilt matching almost perfectly to the color of the dark blue cracked stone. The sprite hovers down and then settles on the heart-marked slab. Just waiting.

“...you sure you want to do this?”

You loosen your hold on your powers. You can hear his soul singing.You can hear them  _ all _ singing. 

The sprite only fluctuates faster, trilling something that had to be  a “just do it already.”

The space surrounding you crackles with energy, sending the hairs on the back of your neck to stand attention. You wish you had the faith the sprite did. Your power is not a safe one. You can count the number of times you've used them on one hand, and never when you weren't trying to utterly  _ destroy _ your enemy. 

The idea of breaking to fix something…

Power singing through you, you take the plunge, diving into the sea of shifting in corporeal energy. The outer layers are the ones that flicker unceasingly between the orange and bright green, layers upon layers of spite templates and codework. But you cut through them like a hot knife through butter, the cocoon of code blossoming around you in an array of additional colors, giving way to the component bits of the mishmash of souls within. Fur and the thrill of the hunt, a bright, bubbly joy that radiates from dark green patches. Brushing against the darker red patches you find the heat and the sound of metal hitting metal, a ringing almost discordant sound, that settled into a thrumming beat the more you listened to it.  Black patches swirled into the red as the source of the feathers that rounded off everything. The corners where they touch they are blending nicely, shading from one particular core to the other, nearly a seemless healthy transition. Nothing like the jammed edges and illfitting placement you'd found peering into Dave's dreamself.

No. The problem wasn't getting the disparate pieces to connect. The problem was that t he artificial code not only encased everything in a thick outer shell, but was threaded through between the smaller pieces welding them all together with a buffer between them, not allowing them to create that healthy blend you can tell it desperately wants to.

You understand why the sprite wanted to do this, regardless. It's degrading even without your help. It was mixed up in the other colors, straining and pulling them apart one strand at a time

A clean break. That's what you need. But it's so entrenched in everything else you're worried it'll just all fall apart. 

Stop lollygaggin bro. Just do it. 

You find the largest concentration of green, since that's the layer closest to the surface of the tapestry of color, and you dig crackling energy in. Drowning in a world of colors and sound you block out the rest of the world. This might not be working with your hands but it's a puzzle that you have to fix. 

The entire mass shudders as the red energy  _ burns _ . You control it with a single minded focus, gripping the frayed edges of red and darker green to keep them from unraveling as your power hooks into the artificial sections and  _ yank.  _

You can't spare a thought for the gaping holes you are leaving behind because if you stop and fret you'll freeze and you've got to keep going before everything unravels in your hands. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all are having a good holiday if you celebrate them! And if you don't, just still have a good day! Have a chapter :D
> 
> I managed to rough out two more chapters over my roadtrip, so I'll hopefully have more for you tomorrow ^^
> 
> I'm finding it like, super difficult to balance narration and dialogue. There's a reason most of my chapters involve a lot of self-reflective narrative and very little interpersonal dialogue. Sorry if it feels a little rough in that respect! Now that we have someone who is a tad more chatty around (who isn't like. awkward as heck around his bro anyway) hopefully ill be able to get the hang of it.


	18. Davepeta > Be Yourself

Your name is Davepetasprite^2 and you are dying. 

As dying as an incorporeal amalgamation of code and souls could be anyway. You don't mind the idea of it. You'd been fully willing to throw yourself against Lord English because it  _ felt _ right. It felt like the you that you became was the exact you that you needed in order to finally fulfill your destiny. Part of you had died trying to avenge someone she loved, and the other part had doomed himself in order to save his best friend. You are no stranger to the idea of death, especially when it comes in the service of doing what you felt was right. 

But what you  _ do _ despise is the idea of dying for  _ no reason.  _ As an afterthought, a footnote in the annotations of the universe, shoved into obscurity because you didn't have a place where you could  _ fit _ once it managed to pull itself together. 

There'd been no sweet fade to black transition  for you. You were a sprite. Jacked in to the very processes of the game itself. You'd been able to  _ feel _ everything as it shuddered to a halt. As the host-frog that made up the universe shuddered and died as a black-hole was created within its very heart. As the horror terrors who protected the boundaries screeched their dismay and gathered their awesome unfathomable power to channel it into one final gambit. 

All sessions, win or lose, had an end. You'd known, deep in your connection to bullshit sprite knowledge that  _ this wasn't it.  _

What happened next was beyond your perch in the food chain. You wonder if you could have understood it if your been a cubed sprite. Maybe if Nepetasprite had reached out and taken Jasprose's hand instead of Davesprite's, maybe they would have been able to understand the screeching contorting chaos as paradox space tried to bounce back and then bounced too far, dragging the rest of you screaming idiots along for the ride. 

But even Jasprose was gone, devoured in the moment between nothing and everything, the game hungry to reclaim every single bit of itself to fuel the recreation of what had been destroyed. You'd been there. You'd felt it reaching into your soul, cold unfeeling hands digging into your code and scratching, tearing you apart because you didn't belong. 

The universe didn't have a place for Davepetasprite^2. 

But you were more than just soul and code and you'd already cheated the goddamn paradox space twice you wouldn't let it dictate your death again. You wanted to live. You wanted to be. You wanted to help your broirail when you hadn't been able to help either of them because they were devoured in the same way Jasprose had been. The same way Nannasprite was unraveled in front of you and you'd been unable to do nothing but refuse and run and run licking your wounds and trying to survive all with sburb haunting your every move. 

You didn't want to fail again. You wanted to be able to  _ help _ not to be told to stand on the sidelines while your meowrail was strangled in front of you. 

You can't see anything anymore. The dark void of the crypt is lost in the frantic waves of energy rippling away from your body. You can't even see Bro anymore. But you feel him, oh God do you feel him, claws out and scratching and biting and tearing bits and pieces out of you leaving nothing more than shreds behind. 

Shreds you cling to with everything you are and everything you've ever been and everything you want to be. Dave was a depressed bird douche whose only success had managed to doom him to obscurity and Nepeta was a shy footnote who hid behind personas and never had the chance to realize her potential much less go after what she wanted but they are both important to you because they are what makes you who you are. 

You can't let them go. You  _ can't.  _

The shreds knit together under the warmth of that belief, your unwavering faith in yourself and the will to survive rushing into the channels of space left behind by Dirk's destructive tidal wave. You feel yourself getting smaller, heavier, as the framework is systematically ripped away and filled back in by your own sheer stubborn unwillingness to let go. You'd almost forgotten what it felt like to have a body, to have mass, to even have more than a patch of fog that you could pull together for a  _ moment _ before you lost it again. It hadn't even been a week and it had  _ gotten _ to you. 

Dirk was not gentle. It hurt like hell. But that was  _ nothing _ compared to the constant pull and strain of the game tugging at your code, trying to pry it from your cold incorporeal paws. Succeeding, bit by bit, at pulling away chunks of you as well. Slowly working to unravel you as nothing more than a side effect. 

That's the difference between bro and the game. The game didn't care that it yanked away chunks of who you are with the code that had bound two of you together and made you one. It didn't care about the delicate web of troll and human and bird. Dirk was  _ rough  _ but he kept it in hand, making almost surgically precise cuts along the edges of your soul, sealing up the fraying bits of red and green with a cauterizing heat just long enough for you to grasp at fraying edges and pull them tight, hissing and spitting in defiance of paradox space's cold indifference. 

The game had already done so much damage, stalking you like a frightened hopbeast for days upon days. You lost your wings. You'd lost your claws. You'd even lost your voice. 

You'd almost lost your hope. Drifting in the furthest ring, the game trying its damnest to snuff you out and stuff your sprites away in the cruxtruders to be re-prototyped in the future. But then you'd found your psycho mom and you'd known. You'd known things were horribly wrong. Yo could see her shattered self scattered around her, reflecting pieces back on each other like an array of fucking funhouse mirrors.

And she gave you something to do with your final few days. 

And she led you to  _ him.  _

The game may have tried its damnest to tear your soul to pieces, but Dirk  _ succeeded  _ in tearing  _ it _ to pieces. 

You can feel the cold stone beneath you. Fingernails claw against the cracks, digging and biting into solid matter as if it was butter. The burning is intense, spreading out from your heart, your core, and down your limbs as they solidify from the nebulous scraps of  _ self _ you’d been reduced to. It’s almost jarring, alien, having weight and mass and a  _ presence  _ after so long that you find yourself lost amongst the sensations of the rough cracks against your skin, the searing heat radiating out from slab beneath you, juxtaposed to the chilling cold chafing your face. Your lungs are on fire, and you gasp. Only gasping and coughing require not entirely blocked airways and you have none, or do you have too many? 

You stretch yourself and eyes open and you see double, bro--Dirk--standing over you holding orange and green fire in his hands, the light blazing skyward in a stream of data, being drawn away, drawn out, the kernel sprites returning to wherever the fuck they waited until the cruxtruders were deployed. Dave's and Jake's, your saviors and your doom and they are leaving--

You spasm, back arching away from the slab that's now burning hot. It's so hot you instinctively try to get away, but something slams you down. Rough hands grip your shoulders pressing them back down against stone, knocking your head back against the quest slab with the force of the movement. 

It's Dirk. The fire is blazing around his hands, throwing his face into a light show of orange and green and dark sharp shadows. It reflects in his shades, the mirrored lenses giving you your first true glimpse of what you've gotten yourself into. 

White hair and grey skin and a deep gaping slash through your throat, leaking a thick green mucus in gushing waves that echoed with every pump of your recreated heart. And you could feel your heart working, hammering in your chest, lungs burning. No wonder you couldn't talk. You couldn't breathe. 

Doomed Dave might have been whole and alive, but Nepeta had been _beheaded._ That had to go somewhere

A dreamer might have been able to survive this. A dreamer didn’t need to breathe. But you are  _ viscerally _ aware of your physicality after so long being nothing more than data. Your vision began to fade as your heart continues to pump, pushing the green blood out of the gash in your neck.

“I'm _ sorry.”  _ the quiet words somehow made it to you over your silent gasps. The hands released you, but you understood.

Fire wreathed hands raised, sword silhouetted against the streams of data that had once been a part of you. 

Then it came down.

You can't help but let out a choked out laugh as the sword drove into your chest, like a piece of yourself sliding home. Even that goddamn bird had to have his fun.

Looks like you’ll need that extra life after all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter could be either Davepeta or Dave. I'm not quite sure which POV works best but we'll seee~
> 
> If anyone is disappointed in the lack of cat puns in Davepeta's narrative, I'm sticking with my previous rules that quirks only show up in text (or dialogue in the case of like puns and stuff.) However cat and bird related metaphors are free game :)
> 
> ...and yes that means they will be joining Dave as the occasional secondary POV characters. This is a story focused on the Striders after all.


	19. Davepeta > Ascend

Eventually you come to your senses. You always had the faintest idea of how it would feel to ascend, considering the number of Daves and Nepetas out there who had died and been reborn at one point or another in their personal timeline. But it had always been in an almost academic manner, a story told to you by someone else, rather than having lived it yourself.

And ooh boy had you ever _misjudged_ it.

Instead of the rush of peace and belonging you'd felt after prototyping your other half, you felt _drained._ Almost as if you'd been stretched to the breaking point and then stuffed back into a container far too small for what you'd become.

Part of that was probably the result of the fact that you _hadn_ 't been embodied at all less than an five minutes ago, and you hadn't had the ability to get physically tired in three goddamn years.

As a result, your ascension was hardly awe inspiring or even dignified. The moment you were no longer being buoyed by the requisite light-show that comes along with the whole process you dropped like a stone. You would have crashed straight through the remnants of the stone tablet, which had broken into the most undignified floating chunks under the subatomic bomb of aspect filled energy you'd released, and probably kept falling straight into the moon’s core.

You would have, if Dirk hadn't just reached out and grabbed a hold of something long and attached to you that yanked you backup the moment you hit the length limit. The whiplash sent your head rocking backwards with a force that probably would have snapped a human's neck if you'd still been human at all.

Instead you just let your head loll. Too tired to bother.

You can still feel the phantom burn of Dirk's power rampaging through you. The weight of your limbs, gravity defying God-tier bullshit or not, felt like stones attached to your torso.

It was just so _different_ and you'd used up all the energy you had even _getting_ to this point.

“So I can dig the feathers,” the carefully drawled words came from above you, “but you don't look much like a rogue in that cape.”

Cape?

You twist in the air. Or you try too, and instead get tangled in your wings. _Wings_ . You forget about Dirk for a moment because a sheer wave of excited joy rushes through you. _It's your wings_!

Wings were the one thing Davesprite had enjoyed about his situation, and you'd resented the game so much from taking them from you. They aren't the creamsicle tasting orange you remember, but the glossy dark green almost black feathers curled around you as you run your claws through long arm-length flight feathers, carefully shifting and searching for the slightest bit of dirt, following distant instincts from the part of you that had been a particularly rambunctious crow. Gonna preen this shit.

Although it's dumb. They wouldn't be dirty you literally just got them but you can't help but marvel at the shiver the motion sends shooting through the limb. You're so dang distracted that you forget about gravity, and with that accidental denial of physics you find yourself floating instead of falling.

A pointed cough catches your attention and you feel your face grow warm but you can’t help the toothy stupid grin spreading across your face. You’re goddamn blushing this is the best thing _ever,_ you suck in a deep breath the way Nepeta used to imitate Pounce de Leon, getting ready to purr the shit out of this business--

A sharp stab in your throat, and you double over, because _something_ isn’t working right. You feel like you need to cough but nothing’s coming out. It’s just a trapped pressure, like you’d swallowed a gobstopper and just couldn’t get it loose. Minus the whole suffocating part anyway since you didn’t need to breathe, thank frog, although you feel like your brain should start to panic at that realization but honestly you’d been non-physical for so long it’s really only the phantom memory from those all too brief minutes bleeding out on the slab that really get you going.

Clawed fingers clamp tightly to your throat, searching. No blood. No gash. The ascension had healed the wound in your neck the same way it’d healed the one in your chest that’d finally killed you but there’s still something _wrong._

Cold hands catch yours, and pry them away carefully. You’re suddenly aware of Dirk in your face, his cool expression slightly scrunched and nagging at old memories. “Let me look.”

You let him pull your hands down, and bare your neck to him in a way that causes something in the back of your mind to arch its back and hiss. It startles you, and Dirk pulls back at the small flinch that sneaks through in your surprise.

Trying to figure out how to mime an apology is a trip and a half. He's your _bro._ Even if from another time line, and he already killed for you, you should be  _cool_ with him having your life in his hands because he already did it and succeeded. 

"it's alright. I can see from here.” Then after a moment he just nods, letting go of your hands completely, “There’s a scar where the wound was, right across here.” He traces the arc clumsily on his own skin, “Right where it transitions from troll grey to a more human skin tone. I doubt the game had a good blueprint for...all of you. It might have messed something up in the reconstruction.”

You scowl at that, exaggerating the expression the best you can because you are irritated. Paradox space must be laughing it up right now, patting itself on the metaphysical back at sticking its little revenge pinky into the pie that is your victory. Well. It could be worse.

“Can you still access Pesterchum?”

You shake your head, miming a typing motion in the air.

“Right. Not a sprite anymore.”

As a sprite you had access to a lot of UI elements you just...don’t have anymore. You feel a pang of loss as you think of the emptiness behind you, holding close the glimpses you’d seen of other Daves, other Nepetas, the memories that had been the one thing to finally soothe your ruffled feathers and let you let go a lot of the emotional baggage you’d been lugging around for well more than three years.

As a squared sprite they’d always lurked behind you, a silent set of hands to catch you and wells of experience to draw on, and the knowledge that, triumphs or fuck ups, they all had a part to play in the grand scheme of things.

You’d expected to lose that connection when you became embodied, the partitions between you and all your other selves going back up to keep your experience as linear as can be expected from someone who’d once been a knight of time. If you thought about it, even that was linear to your own personal timeline. It just got screwy for everyone else.

Well! At least you had your memories, and the conviction that they were out there somewhere, even if you couldn’t reach them anymore. Not even this set back was going to ruin your good mood dang it. You’d _won_ even if paradox space had thrown in a final fuck you wrench into the wring like a spoiled man rotten aristocrat. 

While you are indulging in inner monologue, Dirk seems to be growing more and more uncomfortable with the situation. After a time he sighs, “We need to figure some way for you to communicate. If we could find parts I could make something...”

Another section of awkward silence. You frown and shake your head, reaching out and brushing against one of the faint red shards idly floating around him, and then make a sharp motion up. He shudders and takes a metaphorical step back in the air, tension in his shoulders, “Don’t.”

You gesture up again, toward the shaft that led out of the crypt and back to the surface of Derse’s moon. Frustrated. In return for his help you’d promised to help with the shard problem you should probably help with the shard problem before those got worse.

“Playing charades is just going to make it harder to work together.” He snaps back in equal frustration. “I’ve got…” There’s a pause as he’s probably checking the time on his fancy as hell shades. ARquiusprite said he’d lived in those shades, and you know he’s been typing to you this whole time without a keyboard and you are now absurdly jealous. It hadn’t matter so much as a sprite since you could just jack straight into the program but... “Probably another four, five hours before Dave wakes up. Nowhere near enough time for both of us to learn sign, since I assume you don’t know it--” You cheerfully shake your head.

You are _enjoying_ this. Watching the gears turning behind those pointy shades of his. You’d never really had the chance to do so before. You’re also faintly touched. If the last hour has taught you anything he’s clearly more comfortable in a text medium than speaking, and here he is monologuing at you for your benefit.

Some small remnant of who Davesprite was is watching bitterly and wishes his Bro had been more like Dirk. The you that you are now just decides to appreciate the effort he’s putting into it.

“Our best bet is pesterchum.” He finishes with a shrug. You mime typing again, and then point at him, with a questioning head tilt added at the end for emphasis. “No, I don’t have a spare computer. They were all in my house with the alchemeter. I assume those won’t be on my planet anymore if the overall game state reset, and I have no reason to believe otherwise. All the deviations so far have been player related. If we can find somewhere with a bunch of electronics I might be able to scavenge enough parts to make _something_.” Fingers clutched at the puffy pants of his god-tier outfit, then deliberately released, smoothing out the fabric, “I don’t remember any of our consorts being particularly technologically inclined.”

Electronics...

That nags at something buried beneath three years of memories, from _both_ sets of them. From Dave, the irritated recollection of several internet trolls harassing your friends through time and space. From Nepeta, a stress filled day spent hunkered down in the belly of a meteor, the time only really broken with working on your shipping wall, and occasionally finding time to roleplay through time and space through--

The lightbulb goes off above your head and you try to purr in satisfaction. It comes out an embarrassing squeak that has Dirk’s attention on you in a second as the blockage in your throat shifts ever so slightly.

The exhaustion still drags at you, but having a purpose, an idea to help gives you a sudden burst of energy. You don't even bother trying to mine an explanation before you set your sights on the shaft leading back to the surface, and from there, to the Veil. Those thousands of meteors orbiting the incipispheres. If memory serves, on a few of them there are honest to frog ecto labs. If Dirk wants electronics, those are probably his best bet. 

You don’t need to flap your wings to fly, but you want to so you use a downward sweep to start your forward momentum, stretching muscles that you’ve both always had in some form, but at the same time never _truly_ had. You ignore his startled exclamation as you climb, knowing from the race earlier that he can easily catch up to you if he wanted to. And he’ll follow you no problem.

The rushing of Derse’s atmosphere feels _real_ against your face, tugging at white hair you can barely see peeking around the edges of your shades. But it’s also tugging at something else, fabric, something you’d barely noticed until you’d started moving. You crane your neck to peer over your shoulder, looking past the beautiful black expanse of your wings only to see something flapping out of the corner of your eye.

Huh. You _do_ have a cape.

Rad.

It kinda ruins your plans, but hey, you can appreciate the advantage of comfy as hell uniforms and rad super hero capes.

Now you just needed to figure out what the hell a knight of heart could do and how you can use this to fulfill your promise. You had time, there were a LOT of meteors to check in the Veil around Derse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So uh. This was originally going to be a Dave chapter. And it was all written and everything. But then I decided, you know what? It was a mistake to put yet another emotionally charged chapter in a row. Need a breather for pacing purposes. So. I literally wrote this whole chapter on top of the previous one tonight xD And now I'm going to go pass out since it's an hour after sleep time and i got work in the morning. 
> 
> I know I promised a few people pictures of god-tier embodied Davepeta, but uh it didn't happen. Maybe I'll get time to art this weekend!
> 
> Idk if anyone cares but like, big thanks to the homestuck musical project I'm a part of XD I literally do all my writing to the playlist of songs so far and it keeps me on track somehow.


	20. Dirk > Try to be Useful

The timer you set is counting down constantly in the corner of your vision, marching ever onward. Normally you’d be comfortable budgeting until at least noon before Dave got hungry enough to venture out into the living room, but given the request for training it forces you to push up the time-table some. Da--the former sprite would probably know when the normal window of time would be, having lived through that life once, but you can’t really think of an easy way to ask.

Asking would be admitting you don’t have shit under control.

So. Sunrise it is. If you’re lucky that’ll give you time to spare if he doesn’t get up right away.

You’ve already lost an hour of that time, frustratedly following the bird-winged alternate version of your splinterself’s younger brother as he gallivanted through the ring of meteors, getting further and further away from Derse. It’s frustrating because you don’t know what exactly he is  _ looking for _ . So you can’t help and make the search more efficient and are instead stuck trailing behind like some lost puppy, which is ironic as hell considering he appears to  _ also _ be part cat.

You know god-tier ascension had some bullshit excuse of creating an  _ ideal self _ , which is why half the dream trolls you’d witnessed following Roxy around through dream bubbles had butterfly wings of all things, but you find it hard to believe anyone’s ideal self would be like...part cat, part bird, part troll, part boy and who knows what else. It sounded like someone’s entry level roleplay character.

Then again, prototyping shenanigans. It’s not like he intended half this shit.

As the former sprite--you  _ can’t  _ just call him Dave, it’s pretty damn obvious there’s more to it. Plus there’s a Dave waiting for you and you already have your own Bro this is making your head hurt and it’s not like you had reason to  _ ask _ what he called himself before and now you couldn’t get an answer if you did--swoops down into the shadow of a crater pocked meteor you find yourself wondering how the other prototyping shenanigans might have resulted, had they have been similarly embodied and raised up to conditional deity-ship.

Carefully  _ not _ wondering if you would have seen your face staring back at you behind broken shades, or just another troll you never met before his lifeless head got chucked into your kernel sprite. And also  _ not _ considering the idea that you would have preferred one option over the other.

At least you can pretend to be useful while mapping the way using H--your shades, filling in the minute details, such as meteor size and placement, you hadn’t bothered to catalogue while looking for Derse.. At least the knight was only going for meteors that are above a certain size threshold, you note as you track him from one to the next without your eyes. What  _ is  _ he looking for? 

You feel him better than you can see him, even that shockingly white hair was lost in the black on grey of a world without skaia, and you are far enough away from Derse that the cast-off light from the planet’s city-scape is but a distant memory. But that radiant soul blazed out across your senses like a beacon, somehow even brighter than before despite getting torn to literal shreds. 

Or maybe you’re just better at sensing that shit since you were the one to do the tearing in the first place. While you are a bundle of knife edges surrounding a core of steel, just as liable to cut yourself or anyone else, the former sprite felt...sturdy. You can still see those bits, those shards of color you had to tear apart, but in the spaces you’d torn free there’s something new building, as the edges rub against each other they catch and cool and blend without the sprite framework acting as a roadblock.

Needless to say it makes him easy to follow, even if he had a tendency to dart off without warning.

You trail behind as he flits to and fro, ducking around meteors to appear again out of a shadow and giving you a cheerful wave. Things settle into a rhythm, with you never letting yourself lag too far behind, but not really feeling like keeping up, filling out your electronic map of the of the meteor field. You’re fairly certain this shit isn’t scientifically sound at all. Orbiting this close together--wouldn’t they have smashed shit to pieces by now?

It’s only when you notice that he’s gone for more than a few moments that you perk up and follow that bright spot in your senses, around a wall of large-but-not-quite-standard hunks of rock that had been acting to block your way before. There you see it. It’s a shadow looming in the depths of space, windowless grey steel rising from an impact filled surface. Your shade’s scanners outline the barely visible silhouette in red, showing signs of even more structures jutting out from all sides, indicating it’s likely a  _ single huge _ structure that encompases the entire core of the meteor. Otherwise the damn thing probably would have fallen apart from the weight.

...Either that or it’s a game construct that defies even the questionable laws of physics that rule this dimension. But even if that’s the case, that means this is something the game has deemed important.

And you’ve  _ never _ seen a structure like this before. 

The former sprite’s presence is radiating from within one of the steel buildings, so you begin your descent. However you’ve barely touched your dainty green slippers down on the loose meteoric regolith that covered the surface before you see something flashing orange in the corner of your shades.

Pesterchum. With a thought you dismiss the mapping software and allow pesterchum resource priority, although you make sure to leave a subroutine tracking Derse’s orbit so you don’t end up chasing it on the way back again.

The window opens to the oddly comforting sight of orange and green text.

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT]

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < ah hell yes finally sw33t sw33t communication how i have missed th33   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < get your princely self in here bro theres more than enough gadgets for equius to build a purrfectly comfurtable sl33ping pile so im sure youll find something useful   
timaeusTestified [TT]: How did you know this was out here?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < that gaping slash in my neck? Got it in one of these   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < take the mane entrance and there should be a transpurrtalizer and itll lead you to the observation deck   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < just dont touch anything yet i n33d to figure out if well n33d this shit for ectokitten shenanigans

You find the main entrance easy enough, especially once you pick up the depressions left by the former-sprite’s wing tips lightly brushing the fine soil, trailing after shoe prints perfectly preserved in the atmosphere less environment. Even folded the damn things were taller than he was. Beyond the gaping doorway ran a long, dark hallway rimmed in dark seamless steel. You consider reinitializing your scanner to see if it can pick up the edges enough for you to avoid walking into a wall, but then decide it wouldn’t work without a whole object. They weren’t made for this.

But you did have your tomb-raiding gear groove row, and decaptchalogue the hooded lantern again, letting the light play along the metal walls. You were wrong, there were seams in it, metal panels bolted to the walls with small rivets that you hadn't seen in the fuzzy land of greys and black low light conditions reduced them to. There even appear to be unpowered lights located near the corner where the roof met the walls, arrayed at regular intervals along the pathways. It’s...not entirely unlike the passageway that led into the crypt, if you swapped out crumbling purple brick for smooth unweathered metal.

timaeusTestified [TT]: It doesn't appear to be powered. How did you get a computer running?    
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < we hid from crazy dog jack in here if the lights on the outside were on the cat would have b33n out of the bag quicker than you can twitch a whisker at it    
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < trapped like rats but hey at least there was wifi    
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i dont think this place is supposed to be found by flying through space anyway not with how jam packed the field is i just knew what to look fur. 

You hum noncommittally, fully aware that he couldn't hear you, and subtly pick up the pace. It's not that the darkness and the silence and the tunnel that goes on and on unnerves you, it's just that you are wasting time. The restless energy was returning with a vengeance now that you understood what the knight had been intending with this little sidetrack, and the sense of urgency was beginning to creep back in as you checked your self imposed timer. An hour and a half gone out of your five hour window. 

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < this is giving me some major deja vu though!!! it looks like the interface karkitty and the others used to use to troll us    
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < woah   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < wow

You’d normally expect another instantaneous continuation to that thought, but the window stayed grey, so you prompt it.

timaeusTestified [TT]: What is it?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < just some self revelation going on in here no biggie   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < apparently my old rp partner was actually *myself* 

You can’t help but field the urge to sigh.

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < the timfeline feathures busted by the way   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i wonder what would happen if i could just pick an arbitrary time frame and just trolled someone though   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < just like   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < started all *ac saunters up to you stroking their whiskers and starts purring their heart out in a hey its been a while gr33ting :33*   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < jade might go along with it   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Dave.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < dont worry! dont worry! i wont! i dont wanna get dave in trouble its his reputation on the line   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Who were they?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < what   
timaeusTestified [TT]: The other you. I know Dave. I never met the troll.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < oh   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < her name was nepeta   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < its not like i can just reach into my brain and pull out a tinder profile for you to read you gotta figure this shit out organically man this isnt speed dating   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Data.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < what??   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Just a guess.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < are you trying to guess my name???   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < aw bro you could have just asked instead of acting all coy and shit   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < its davepeta   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < thatd make a sw33t nickname though i dig it too bad im not a sprite any more itd be 120 purrcent more fitting being all jacked into the matrix and having a walking database shoved in my skull   
timaeusTestified [TT]: You literally just slammed your names together.    
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < youre expecting me to be subtle???   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < mr im gonna word vomit all over your chat window about whatever inane thought crosses my mind except when it comes to the real shit plus ms im gonna roleplay out my fantasies beclaws i cant deal with reality and act all hyper bubbly and shit because i dont know how to communicate without it?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < im tired of hiding shit   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Touche.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: If you’re this into sharing does this mean we’re on the second date?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < more than that bro were going steady if im shoving all my skeletons out of the closet to make room for mew moving in and getting all domestic and shit   
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...you realize we’re related right?    
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < its called metaphor bro whats the point in indulging in it if mew cant traipse over a few societal taboos besides i meant it in a totally pale wanna paw and shoosh your face way   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < hah dave would be trying to extract his paw from his noisehole at this point but i just find it hissterical   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < it really does make you realize how dumb some things are when you go and look at it from another perspective that never grew up with half the shit we think of as normal

It felt like forever, but eventually you find the round device set into a branching of paths, a familiar rune carved into the metal and humming with quiet potential. With a sigh you recaptchalogue the lantern using its corresponding rhyme and take a step up onto the raised circular dias, closing your eyes as you do so. 

The shiver of having your entire body deconstructed is not one that you will ever forget. It always reminds you of your first experience. Your first real brush with death. The red miles tearing your home to shreds and your friends dying across time and space, and a red hot  _ need _ to save them, save Jake, burning through your veins. It hadn't been the last time you'd lost your head, sending it soaring through time and space, but it certainly wasn't an experience you'll ever forget. Ever since you can't use one of these things without your throat tightening and your jaw clenching and just bracing yourself against something that will never come. 

You  _ kn _ ow that happened because you'd stuck your head in a microwave-sized box  _ meant to send small objects _ , while actual physical pads like the ones you just used are  _ made _ to transport full bodies. But one of the failings of your meatbag organic brain was occasionally falling into illogical thought patterns in the presence of specific stimuli, so you react anyway and don't relax until your molecules stop vibrating and settle back into the physical plane where they belong.

You peel your eyes open. It's  _ bright _ , but only really in comparison to what you've grown used to in the veil and on derse. The overhead lights are objectively fairly dim, but you can see a large array of other transportalizers surrounding the one you'd arrived on, likely leading to other parts of the complex. The knight hadn't mentioned taking another jump so you instead find the one pathway leading out, leading toward the bright patch of color that burned on the edge of your senses. Much, much closer now. How deep inside the structure were you?

The hallway opens up into a large room, ringed in computer consoles and monitors. You easily spot da--Davepeta's giant bird wings folded against his--hers?--their back, feathers still  barely brushing the dusty floor even from where they were perched on a stool. They didn't so much as twitch in your direction as you entered, just the click clack of claws on keys pausing in their rhythm as the chat window blinks to life again. 

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < the consoles in this room should be safe to scavenge all the impurrtant shit looks like its downstairs   
timaeusTestified [TT]: What is this place?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < ectobio lab responsible fur creating and s33ding paradox clones   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < john took care of it fur us   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < karkitty had many shouty words about it too but most of what i picked up was from john because he wouldnt shut up about being a slime daddy to jade and i just kind of absorbed it by proxy because she would just ask me so many questions   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < as if I had all the answers just because I was from the future   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < meownths might have passed but we never got that far beclaws he got himself killed off   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < anyway did someone n33d to play baby daddy for your litter of slime-clones?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Considering we did fuck-all aside from climb escheladders and screw up our relationships before your crew arrived I’m going to assume the correct answer is no one did. My knowledge of ecto-biological fuckery is purely theoretical.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < what really???   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < how long were mew guys in the game again   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Six months.    
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < six meownths and noone found a transpurrtalizer??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < john stumbled into that shit inside a day   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Void session, remember? The game likely didn’t bother putting one in. We didn’t have a battlefield, or prototyping towers, or quest beds on our own planets, or even consort quests. Hell even our denizens were long dead we got the short end of every stick.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < oh shit thats right   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < well then welcome to one of your potential litterdens 

It doesn’t seem particularly awe-inspiring to you, but you are intrigued nonetheless. Carapacians as a whole didn’t seem to be the most technologically advanced species given how malleable they’d been towards the Batterwitch’s reign on earth, and being reduced to cramped sea-dwelling slum cities, and yet here you were, standing in a lab devoted to creating the  _ paradox clones  _ that had or will one day be sent to create your brother and yourself. How would the scratched universes effect that? Did the same clone create both yourself and Dave’s Bro?

It’s an ache, deep in your heart, under lock and key, that keenly wishes Roxy were here. Not the creature of broken glass and bleeding edges, but the one you knew and grew up with. She’d been playing with this shit since birth, she’d know what the fuck was going on. Or at least be better situated to understand it.

Give you something mechanical and you’d be all over it. Biology was messy.

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < okay before mew end up elbow d33p in wires i n33d to check on your shards   
You pause in your examination of one of the consoles. You’d been mostly ignoring them, letting them linger out of sight but not quite out of mind. Just the memory of  glimmers where once embers had burned. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: Would that even do any good?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < cant hurt can it? i found you toys to dismantle to get your mind off shit so let me finish my job

You raise an eyebrow at that but don’t comment on the strange phrasing. You really are just learning to roll with it, aren’t you? They doesn’t seem inclined to leave their perch, and really it wouldn’t make sense  _ to _ leave considering they needed the keyboard to communicate and it’s already logged in. You don’t even need that much convincing, despite the unease  _ anything _ messing with your soul causes to bubble up, because really this had been the bargain afterall. Your help for his.

Their touch is kitten soft and gentle, but not the least bit hesitant. You stiffen immediately having  _ someone else _ reaching into that jagged space, at the brush of self-to self. They may not be physically connected, but the points where they broke off hum, reflecting the worried curiosity that sends a shiver up your spine.

It’s much more pronounced now that the person they’d become had some time to settle into themself. As a sprite that touch had been whispy and nebulous, like a chilly night fraught with the potential for static energy. You resist the urge to pull away because it’s only fair. You had to delve into their  _ core _ in order to fulfill your part of the bargain. You can deal with some surface level scrutiny it was  _ cool.  _ This was nothing, even if the thought of being so vulnerable had you wanting to break out in hives.

They make that odd squeaking noise again and then scowls, lips pulling back to give you a good look at those odd oversized canines. Not quite shark teeth like the blind troll you’d briefly met before she absconded to let you and Dave air your shit, but full blown fangs. Trolls were strange.

A quick turn, feathers puffing up with agitation and they’re typing furiously away at the computer again.

It was just so  _ strange _ to see such an openly expressive Strider. Between your Bro’s charming, but  _ careful _ handling of the public sphere, and Dave’s habitually guarded nature around you, you’d started to wonder if it was even possible.

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i think we need to talk about what those shards are and why you have your paws on them   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < they dont s33m to be grinding against your edges like psychomoms were which is good but your soul *is bleeding from where they were yanked out    
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < they dont s33m to fit with well anything    
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < the rhythm is wrong its too dissonant against the rest of you but it obviously is since i litterally saw it snap off and shatter when she killed you and even as a sprite i was able to hold them together with you while i got you out   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < out with it whered you find them

You cross your arms and let the shards fade back into the glimmers they were. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: You saw the debris cloud?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < considering i was swept out with the trash duh! 

You think back. Back to empty darkness and rainbow glimmers dotting the space as far as the eye could see. Of heat and familiarity and finding something just  _ close enough _ to snap into that blank part of your soul. Something still alive where that body was not. With the keen power of hindsight you take that moment and rewind it. It hadn’t been what you’d found first. It’d been attached to a thread, leading away from something that you’ve grown  _ quite _ familiar with. Heat and metal and a city of glass and rotting air.

timaeusTestified [TT]: I didn’t know what they were. Everything was just very raw and overwhelming and all the edges--they were gone. It left...gaping holes open. I wasn’t really thinking the clearest at the time, and headed for the first thing that felt familiar. I picked one and followed it, and found myself on earth in Dirk Strider’s body. When I found my way back, it just kind of stuck there.     
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < ...so what happened to the body when it shattered?

You shrug again, mentally composing the message while you do. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: Now you understand why I need a solution before Dave wakes up. He didn’t react well the first time.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < holy shit   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i thought you were like me and stuck on this side of nothing till the game started but no you need to be the *responsible adult* for shorty back there!   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < im gonna take another look to see if i can figure out *what* those shards are cuz it sure aint bros soul that thing was gone long before we got pounced on none of us were supposed to survive either if jade hadnt pulled some amawzing witchy voodoo to get us out of there   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < im rambling again ok just sit down and bring em out

You ease onto the stool at the console next to him, deliberately turning away and focusing on the dimly glowing screen. You suppress the shiver caused by his claws on your edges again, burying it in the curiosity intent on the strange interface before you. It’s modeled after pesterchum, and you find the login-screen accepts your credentials easily, pulling up a copy of your friend’s list (with its single lone occupant) as well as several new features you don’t recognize. With a thought you mute pesterchum on your shades, a keyboard and mouse feeling awkward in your slim teenaged hands instead of the big adult ones.

There’s some sort of locked memo function that you ignore for now, but you do find the timeline feature dave--Davepeta mentioned. There are eight tabs, each punched with the aspect symbols corresponding to the members of your player group. You hover over the one that’s the most familiar to you.

And click. The broken pink heart flashes on the small window and a sprawling line stretches from one end of the screen to another, the occasional points of note bookmarked by large spikes of activity and a small sburb spirograph pattern next to it. There are three interrupting the long line, and you pick one near the beginning to click on.

Nothing. Just a black screen.

You skip to the next. 

It’s a crater in the ruins of a record shop, a smoking meteor, and a young man leaning over a much smaller bundle, tiny infant sized shades in his hands. You freeze. It isn’t a movie, just a snapshot. But if you hit the arrow key would it keep going?

It must have been noticeable, because you feel Davepeta’s probing presence draw back, and then the typing begins.

It pops the pesterchum window open over top the small display.

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < huh is that what happened? trust him to go straight for the shades   
timaeusTestified [TT]: You didn’t look?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < nah at least not more than i n33ded to realize things were more or less the same as i remember from daves life   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < if you try to hit purresent day or furture it just locks up tighter than a childproof lock on the catnip   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < none of it happened anyway bro   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i was conscious for the big rebound it wasnt like some thirteen billion years worth of universal time going by in a flash and playing out histories and shit on fast forward   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < just...old prerecorded data and you cant interact with it outside of linearity i tried   
timaeusTestified [TT]: It would be too easy for the game to give us all the answers like this, wouldn’t it? Is none of this even real then? Just some pre-constructed bullshit intended to ensure we can continue the breeding cycle of some cosmic amphibian entity that doesn’t want to keel over and die without making little tadpoles?

There’s a huff from beside you, the weight of someone else’s presence is comforting right now in the face of all this history you  _ don’t _ know and aren’t a part of.

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < the world out there is just as real as its ever been bro it went live the moment we began to exist and maybe paradox space has a plan but im a pro dealing with those and ive got some fancy as hell new claws itching to shred some plans   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < maybe im in a unique pawsition here being intimately familiar with daves of all stripes but   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < f33l fr33 to correct me if im wrong but you wouldnt be here with that timer ticking down in your head if you werent determined to make life better for *this* dave right? Screwy universe bullshit aside

They're  _ right _ damnit.

Okay. You bury your face in your palms and  _ press, _ glasses a firm pressure against your temples. Okay. You can do this.

There’s an odd gurgling sounds from your left, and a small pat on the side of your face not taken up by hands and eyeware. Kitten soft, claws curled into the fist to reduce the chance of accidental knicks. 

Then typing. 

You ease your hands down, your vision returning in a sluggish haze, blinking at the flashing window in front of you.

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < theres an alchemeter station two floors down if you whip me up a pair of those rad as hell mindreading shades we can be out the door and hunting furreaky not-bro shards in less than ten minutes ive got their scent now so we should be able to find *something* 

You can’t help the wan smirk in response to that.

timaeusTestified [TT]: No dice bro unless you’ve got a copy of your brain captchalogued somewhere. These shades are far too expensive for you to afford.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < haha very funny get meoving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more I swear and we'll get back to dave. This one just like wow exploded. And I had to cut a LOT of the conversations, they just really wanted to have some family bonding time.
> 
> Also uh sorry but davepeta is totally pale for dirk I don't make the rules ok dirk is naturally oblivious because I don't think he's been exposed to the clusterfuck that is troll romance. 
> 
> For those who were waiting on davepeta artwork, either check the note at the end of the fic or just go to the third fic I added in the series related to, well, related artwork XD It's in there!
> 
> Edit: Note to self. italics in pesterlog chats break stuff so don't do it.


	21. Dirk > Reach Out

It started with just the occasional twinkling breaking up the darkness of space, the promise of distant stars if only you could reach far enough. It dragged you back to your rooftop in the middle of the ocean, laying down on warm concrete and trying to pick out the pinpricks of light beyond the general haze of the atmosphere. 

You only went up on hazy nights. Clear nights were almost overwhelming with nothing to block the sheer scale of the universe, hundreds of millions of stars, stretching from flat horizon to horizon, rivers of gas and clouds breaking up the sky in a world without people and their distractions. As you got old enough to start thinking about the implications of being a single human person in that sea of celestial objects, you stopped going up to the roof after sundown, haze or no.

You’d thought a lot about your place in the world, in history, growing up. Never once would you have considered you’d be  _ here _ , floating in the depths of space surrounded by stars in their own right.

Nothing changed out beyond the furthest ring. It was a desolate void where even the terrors no longer reside. Once there had been hundreds of bubbles to wander through, floating in the dreams of beings beyond any intention you had to understand. No longer. It’s just a graveyard, a field of empty space and sharp edges and trash the program no longer needed. It hadn’t changed since you’d been through a week before, but the experience is entirely different, and it had everything to do with  _ you.  _ When you last passed through here you were closed off, single mindedly focused on getting away, getting back to your friends, refusing to acknowledge that your friends are  _ here. _

They crowded around you now, fulfilling a younger you’s nightmare of drowning in that far off river, currents pushing and pulling you in different directions, hundreds maybe thousands of different voices just on the edge of your hearing. 

Your time amongst the remnants in Roxy’s dream room has you recognizing her immediately, whether pink or blue or a plethora of other colors, scattered across space and joining the slow orbit the river makes around the incipisphere. This one right here glistens under your touch, and brushing against the edges brings to mind the soft meows of cats and hands running through fur and quiet giggles.

But you don’t allow yourself to linger, remembering the pleasant hum shifting to incoherent warning chimes, heralding the shadow in the window of Derse’s sky.

You aren’t here for Roxy, you remind yourself, ignoring your unconscious brain’s attempts to drag you back to that time, with the sharp pain of the sword through your chest and the bells tolling in your head, over and over. Roxy isn’t even the only ones here.

You’ve been at it for--you don’t know how long now, and you need to check the countdown you have going to even get an estimation going. Hour and a half to find the meteor lab. Even going at full speed after that it had taken you at least three to reach even the trailing edges of the cloud. You and Davepeta had even split up to search better, knowing sunrise was almost here. The former sprite promised they had the feel of the shards memorized, but that still nagged at you, worried you. Because you hadn’t  _ found _ these ones first.

A thread. 

There’d been something else first.

Damn it.

A resonance, you remember that much. Proximity that made the edges of your jagged soul sing long before you found it. Nothing more than a splinter of memory.

But each single one of these fucking things were bits and pieces of fucking memories. The feelings and experiences and growth that didn’t fit the jury-rigged amalgamations of dreamer and game data asleep on Derse. Downright pedestrian shit like Roxy buried in her goddamn cats. Dark green glimmers that make your heart  _ hurt _ because it’s Jake’s boisterous enthusiasm and the deep, wild smell of living things and the cry of wild beasts. The sweet sweet scent of what you can only imagine is freshly baked goods, the warmth of pride as guiding and protective hands made the first slice into a cake.

The only things fucking missing were the sea air and the smell of oil and the soft beat of music when you allowed yourself to relax. Then you could make a goddamn set.

And those are only the ones you can access. Those are the ones your heart  _ knows _ well enough to decrypt the syntax encoding them. For every shred of your friends you find there are ten, twenty, thirty  _ more.  _ Davepeta was probably going through hell dealing with their own set with their newly bolstered abilities, fielding shreds from two lives torn apart and set adrift.

Three years and 16 years worth of shards of memory, flushed out into the river of stars above a black sea.

The red timer ticks down, down, down as you try to make as methodical as a sweep as possible. It isn’t a hard deadline by any means, but it works as a sharp reminder. A steady crescendo of anxious energy pushing you further and deeper into the cloud. Your friends sing out quiet greetings to you as you pass, and you’re even starting to pick up Dave’s, you think, as you pass a particularly warm glimmer that tries to push you away, that same heat and discordant metal hitting metal you’d picked up from digging through Davepeta’s code. 

Davepeta themself was too far away to feel, too crowded out by the hundreds of competing sights and voices all reaching out and dying to tell their stories if only someone could hear them. You can but you can’t. You can only catch glimpses and flashes and sounds and only if your heart recognizes them.

They’d been conspicuously quiet since you both agreed to split up. The pesterchum window grey and dark leaving you alone to your thoughts. The last message sent was over a half an hour ago. The longest the knight had let it go quiet since you’d presented them with a hastily alchemized communication device back on the meteor. 

You suspect they’d missed contact as much as you had. Having them in your friendlist made the absence less glaring.

timaeusTestified [TT]  began pestering  turntechGodhead [TG]

timaeusTestified [TT]: You cool?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I bet it’s more intense out here now that you don’t have your sprite suppressing heart shit.

You don’t receive an instant response, but you don’t really expect one. For all your joking about needing their brain to make them “rad mindreading shades” there was only so much you could do with the limited machinery, time, and grist supply on the meteor. Most hands free communication required voice prompting, which was out of the question entirely. They’ll see the message when they check next. Until then, you just…

Keep moving.

You’re headed ever outwards, deeper and deeper into the void searching for that resonance that had reached out to sing at you and allowed you to follow its threads between worlds.

Eventually the window flashes orange and opens back up.

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < yeah  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < its just  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i found karkat dirk  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i can hear his shouty voice ringing past kanayas laughter  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < over there is a bit of terezi blind darkness and weird color smells and all  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i hadnt stopped to think about them yet focused on keeping myself unmunched and then finding you  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i started this adventure with 11 other friends you know?  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < now im finding bits and pieces of those left and im left wondering why i never thought about them before 

Not a single pun. Not even a reaching one, or twisting the wording in order to force one. Just quiet empty confusion ringing out from orange and green text.

timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s hard. 

You focus on the space ahead of you, scanning the multicolored points of light for any that particularly resonated with you, chewing on what to say. Some mechanical part of you wants to remind them of the countdown. Of the objective. But the rest of you recognized how easy it would be to leave it at that and not acknowledge the hollowness behind the words.

timaeusTestified [TT]: I didn’t realize either, when I came through. Didn’t want to, probably. Straight up closed my heart off and deluded myself if I flew far enough I’d find everyone.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: It wasn’t until Dave and Derse and those towers forced me to admit just what all this is.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I doubt your sprite databases included a section on memory dumping grounds and you already said you were occupied.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < finding these make me wonder where my friends are now  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < at least rose and john and jade are all at home smushed into their pre-recorded lives  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < but alternia died dirk  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < what about karkat and kanaya and terezi?  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < theres no easy hole to shove them into  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If they are out here for you to find, they must be somewhere.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Like you said, this is the shit that doesn’t fit. That means there must be a place to put them in the first place.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: We already know this shit is going to be different. The fact that there’s 8 available prototypes speaks to that.  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i know! and really theres way less pieces of my troll furiends which is comfurting in a way  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < it just means when i do find them theyll probably remewber more of who they are beclaws they lost less  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < not that theyll recognize me  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < no one will actualikitty since davesprite wont have been n33ded  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < but thats feline and dandy well just have to become furiends all over again B33c

Ah there it goes. Back to the puns. You feel a tension loosen.

timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m sure you’ll win them over in no time   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < yeah!  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < besides if my time as a sprite has taught me anyfang its that nothing we do ever vanishes furever  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < i still have those meowmeries even if they dont!  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < its your furiends that have it the worst  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < like dave john jade and rose are screwed up beclaws they had chunks of their life forcibly ripped out but at least the template mawtches them up to where they were befure  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < but psychomom got smushed up into a life she never lived and its tearing her apart and i cant imagine your other furiends are faring any better  
timaeusTestified [TT]: They’re dead so I can’t imagine it’s bothering them too much.

You send the message before you really allow yourself to think about it.

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < what! B??  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < shit  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < nanna  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < john prototyped her ashes  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < and jades grandpa  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < oh man  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < im so sorry bro  
turntechGodhead [TG]: i saw them in the player data and didnt even think twice about it  
turntechGodhead [TG]: fuck

turntechGodhead [TG]  has blocked  timaeusTestified [TT]

Your flight sputters to a stop. The bright red text glares at you like a warning, the growing, tightly restrained panic rising with the blood rushing into your ears with every second that goes by before the notification flashes again.

turntechGodhead [TG]  has unblocked  timaeusTestified [TT]

turntechGodhead [TG]: sorry dave logged on had to prevent the notifications   
turntechGodhead [TG]: okay new rule dont message me unless i say something furst i n33d to k33p the window read   
turntechGodhead [TG]: purrobably talking to john let me s33   
turntechGodhead [TG]: oh shit outta time bro   
turntechGodhead [TG]: youre in the hospital   
turntechGodhead [TG]: they arent letting him stay in the apartment alone   
turntechGodhead [TG]: they found someone to watch him but he doesnt know them and i cant even guess who it would be because you didnt have any furiends ever   
turntechGodhead [TG]: fuck i mean bro didnt   
turntechGodhead [TG]: its only until you wake up but shit bro we arent any closer looking for this n33dle in a haystack bullshit   
turntechGodhead [TG]: im supposed to be a rogue so i can fucking help   
turntechGodhead [TG]: steal away the damage and fix the thing that was the fucking plan   
  
Heart in your throat you look away from the window and into the thousands of glimmers burning in every direction, hours upon hours worth of searching even if you had all the time in the world and you don’t. The timer continues to tick down, still just under an hour left but it doesn’t matter because apparently fuck you. 

turntechGodhead [TG]: dirk   
turntechGodhead [TG]: talk to me   
turntechGodhead [TG]: dont you dare get lost in your own head again   
turntechGodhead [TG]: we gotta focus!   
turntechGodhead [TG]: you said you found that shard out here   
turntechGodhead [TG]: these are memories   
turntechGodhead [TG]: think about it   
turntechGodhead [TG]: what was that memory   
  


How the hell are you supposed to know? It’d been heat and metal and you’d just recognized something of yourself in it that filled the space in your edges and just slid along the edge of yourself into something that was you but not quite you. It’s not like you’d stopped to smell the rot-filled roses, you’d been operating mostly on instinct.

Heat and metal.

timaeusTestified [TT]: I didn’t fuckin’ look okay? I told you I wasn’t thinking straight. It just felt like me.

_ Felt like me. _

Heat and Metal and sharp edges that you eased into as easy as if they were your own because they  _ fit _ .

Things just  _ clicked. _

timaeusTestified [TT]: Me.    
timaeusTestified [TT]: It has to be the talk with me. Dave’s talk with me about his Bro.

Bro is  _ gone. _ All he is exists in the memory of the younger ecto-son he fucked over. The  _ one point _ in the entire goddamn timeline, where both you and he existed in the same mind space simultaneously would have been when Dave was venting at  _ you  _ and  _ you took responsibility and apologized. _

turntechGodhead [TG]: well fuck that was a once in a lifetime expurrience wasnt it   
timaeusTestified [TT]: You could say that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY there we go. Back to Dave next chapter. And don't worry, we'll rewind a little when we get there. Remember what I said about the dave chapter being chronological but switched for pacing? Well, time for some narrative time shit XD
> 
> And while I know dirk is probably thinking it right now, no, he wouldn't have fixed it in time even if he ran off immediately after waking up. This mission was doomed from the start woo.
> 
> Edit: also I am aware of the arg and it scares the heck out of me so I am not going to acknowledge it in this fic haha.
> 
> Dang tho, Jake sure got around in his time, didn't he.
> 
> Double Edit: The end of this chapter was pretty heavily edited 1/3/19


	22. Dave > Fail to Get a Good Night Sleep...Again

##  It’s hours past...but not many.

Three hours, 57 minutes, and 3 seconds to be precise, at the exact moment a sword found its home in a newly born god, and you happen to be dreaming peacefully.

You don't know where you are. You just… ExIst. And that's the best way you can describe it, floating in some weird sort of purple-black abyss.

You should wonder why you are here, but dream logic dictates that it doesn't really matter. You were and therefore you are and really you just needed to sit back and enjoy the ride and see whatever shit your subconscious made up for you. Maybe you'll actually get to fight a dragon this time? Whatever it was beat sitting in a posh tower like some isolated hermit, you’d like to fulfill your destiny or do something heroic or some shit. Not that you ever remember these dreams after you wake up, or even really have all that much lucid control during them, but it’s the principle of the thing. The least your subconscious could do is entertain you if its gonna keep you trapped in your own skull.

Everything is overlaid by the soft maroon light, filling the space with a substance that is almost tangible, acting as a heat against the surface of your skin. Or maybe even something beneath your skin. You don't know. But whatever it is it leaves your body tingling, charged, it makes you want to move but your body doesn't respond to your brains and just floats there. As if waiting for something. 

And then.. There is something. A tolling of bells, matching up in time to the ticking in your head. There's something forming in that light. Or it's trying to. You can feel it reaching out, clawing for something, anything to give it an anchor to pull through. You don't even think about it, because deep inside there's really only one thing you  _ can  _ do, especially when that something inside of you is screaming to  _ help.  _

You plunge your arm into the depths of that light, into the cocoon struggling to complete the metamorphosis on its own, and wrap your hand--it feels too big and too strong to be yours--around another's. Something sharp picks into your palms, breaking skin and allowing rivulets of red dribble down your fingers and get caught in the dips and rivets that would tell the story of your life to the right person… 

And you pull.

The light surrounding your arm cracks and splinters and then shatters, falling away from grey tipped claws that dug deep into your own skin. 

You wake up. 

You blearily stare up at the ceiling, at the soft moonlight playing against the walls and drawing patterns across the chips in the paint. It's almost enough to make its own shadow puppet show, some unseen actor playing out an unknown story right before your eyes. 

Caught by a sudden  _ need _ you roll out of bed, stumbling your half asleep way to the desk. You grope for your pencil, knocking it to the floor in your uncoordinated haste but that's okay. That's okay there's a pen here. And paper. And that's good enough. The image in your brain runs out through your hand like water and onto the page. Another shitty stick figure joins your countless doodles, cat ears and shades and a rad as hell cape with arching crows wings spreading from their back. Crows are pretty fucking rad, you gotta admit it, even if the ones that live around your building are assholes and like to abuse your hospitality and make a mess of your shit sometimes.

What the hell is wrong with you? 

You ball up the drawing and throw it into the trash can, hurling the pen to be lost in the shadows across the room. This was dumb. You were dumb. It was just a goddamn dream. 

Okay maybe crushing the doodle was a little harsh. So what if your subconscious wanted to be inspired at some ungodly time of the morning. No big deal. It. Happened. You just...need to go back to sleep.

Yes. Sleep.

You throw yourself back into bed and the unseen puppeteer continues with its shadow play as you watch, willing your agitated brain to calm the hell down. Normally you’d just say forget it, up is up, and just noodle on the computer till dawn, but you don’t want to give bro a reason to cancel the training session for something as dumb as lack of sleep and given how strange he’s been acting you wouldn’t put it past him right now. You’ve operated on worse but obviously he doesn’t believe you could handle it now. Haven’t you proven yourself enough? You’ve been doing this for as long as you can remember, pushing yourself to do  _ better,  _ to  _ keep up _ , to get a goddamn nod and a good job out of him was like pulling teeth but the acknowledgement lit up your life even brighter than fucking Christmas.

Not that you guys celebrated it really. But you saw that shit on TV and it looked pretty dope so you can imagine it.

Shit. You feel awake. You feel so awake you’re half tempted to run up to the roof yourself at this ungodly hour of 3 am and do some laps just to burn off the energy. It’s what chased the fog from your brain and pushed you to get up and draw was still tingling under your skin. 

Maybe a midnight snack will settle you down. There’s still that apple juice in there, fuck yeah that would zen you right the hell out. If you couldn’t sleep maybe you could music and meditate or some shit to rest your brain enough to nod off for just a little while longer. The hours until sunrise were enough to catch another cycle of Zs if you’re lucky.

Or maybe you'll just go for pizza. It's easy and simple and delicious. Just reach into the fridge and grab a slice and bam, you're done. Good cold or hot, no need to fiddle around with the microwave that you're fairly sure is possessed--

There's a light in the living room. You stop in the hallway and squint at it. It isn't anywhere near bright enough to be the overhead light, and it's too blue to be the moon. If Bro was up and on the computer or watching TV then you are going to make a snide comment on making sure  _ he  _ got a good night's sleep, the hypocrite. 

From well out of range, of course. You are occasionally an idiot, but you aren’t stupid.

Sure enough the soft blue light  _ was _ coming from the computer screen in the corner. It'd long since switched to Screensaver mode, just showing an image of Bro's shades drifting and bouncing across the screen. Hm. Maybe Bro just left it on or something. You don't see his silhouette against the window although there  _ is _ something sitting in the chair, but it’s too small to be Bro.

Not that that something stayed unknown for very long. The hairs on the back of your neck pickle as you parse the lanky figure. It's just Lil'Cal. You shouldn't be surprised. Bro liked to have the ventriloquist doll nearby while he worked, and leaving him sitting in his seat to startle you sounded like it could be one of the more harmless pranks he’d pulled on you in recent memory, all things considered.. 

You are about to just chalk it up to some an advanced level of ironic performance art you just aren’t getting when you note that Lil’Cal's glassy eyes are angled down, and you unconsciously follow his gaze. 

The clocks tick toking away in your head screech to a stop. You just. Can't comprehend what you are seeing. 

There's a lump on the floor. It's just a blanket. Bro must have kicked it off when he went to bed. No big deal. There's no need to cross the room to check and make sure because it's just a blanket. Just a--

“Bro?” 

You are at the edge of the desk. The light from the screen saver doesn't illuminate this far down, blocked by the edge of the desk. But a cloud shifts lazily across the sky and unblocks the goddamn moon like the reveal from some awful horror film and… 

It's the Incident. All over again. 

“damn it bro not again.” your heart is pounding in your ears and you find yourself trembling. Honest to dog shaking like a leaf about to be torn away and thrown to the mercy of houston’s sick updrafts by one last straw. You  _ are going to be cool _ . This is probably some test or mind game or --

He's still not moving. 

You are safely out of surprise strife range right now but if you go any closer you won't be but he's not moving. 

“bro come on this isn't fucking funny.” 

A chill is slowly working its way up your spine as Lil'Cal glassy blue eyes take in the whole scene. Some suspicious corner of your mind wondered if that's what this was. If he's filming one of his videos right now and you get to be the fucking guest star. 

What would it be called? Moronic little brother flips his shit over prank details at 11?

...but you can't get the Incident out of your head. About seeing those unguarded orange eyes unfocused and empty, staring into space like some goddamn zombie, only responding and focusing on  _ you _ when you got close enough to literally shake him. 

Why didn't you just  _ ask _ ? You have no idea if he went to the doctor like a goddamn adult because you’d assumed he would but here he fucking was sprawled out on the floor again and you can't even see his face this time---

Prank or not you can't take this. You take a few more shaky steps and - - 

Something looks  _ off _ about the speaker next to the chair, a dark patch almost invisible against black except it didn’t shine in the moonlight in quite the same way, drinking in the reflected light like some fucking blackhole that sent the chill screaming into your gut like someone dropkicked it down a flight of stairs. You scramble forward, throwing bro-ingrained-strife-survival instincts to the wind because  _ fuck it that’s blood. _

You’re rambling out loud right now, you know you are, but the words don’t even penetrate your brain it’s so locked up and focused on your Bro. Dried blood was caked to the side of his head, you can see the dark patches against his Strider-light hair in the oh so helpful moonlight. Whatever happened it happened too goddamn long ago because it’s rust brown almost black by now.

Shit you didn’t bring your phone. Shit shit shit. Fuck. You actually needed to do this. It’s Bro and he’s not responding and there’s blood. Or was blood. Shit. Weren’t head wounds supposed to bleed a lot? 

You’re dimly aware that you are yelling at him but what exactly doesn’t matter because he’s  _ not _ responding even as you shake his goddamn shoulders it was supposed to work it did last time--

  1. Your brain helpfully nudges you away from screaming gibberish to drown out the sounds of time being wasted and falling away from you, toward the sane response to finding your older brother slash caretaker passed out on the floor. Phone, you need to go back and get your phone--



No his phone is right fucking there on the desk get that instead you idiot _. _

_ “Houston 911. What is your emergency?” _

The words get caught in your throat at the unfamiliar voice on the line. But it’s only for a moment because they break out like a tornado ripping through an old barn and flinging cows and cowshit everywhere and making a huge mess all over the place. “I--I need help my bro he’s--fuck i don’t know he’s passed out on the floor and there’s blood on his head and he won’t wake up and he should be waking up--”

“ _ What is your name? How old are you?” _

None of this matters you just want bro to wake the hell up. You rattle off the information and bro’s cell number in a state of shock when prompted. Your address makes you panic. Not because you don’t know it, you do, but at this very moment the information flies out of your head and leaves you a gibbering mess. It’s not like you ever mail shit, or leave for that matter. You could, but what’s the point? If you go out without bro you got hounded by well meaning strangers who wrung their hands over a kid on the street alone so you just never bothered and now you  _ can’t remember the address. _ But then you remember the pizza and you find it on the sticker on the pizza box in the fridge and the lady over the phone congratulates you for being such a smart boy but it means nothing because bro’s still not moving.

At least he’s fucking breathing, miracle of miracles. And you can’t believe you hadn’t thought to check before the calm voice on the other end of the line prompted you. The idea that he wouldn’t be was ludicrous, even in your panic. There’s no way he wouldn’t be breathing because there’s no way bro would die. He just--just fell that’s all.

But if he just fell then why were you on the phone with a lady at the emergency dispatch who was sending a fucking ambulance to your apartment?

“ _ Are there any other adults around? Can you call your parents?” _

All you can say is “Just my bro” because you don’t have parents. Neither of you have parents. It’s just always been you and him and now it’s just you _. _

You don’t remember much of the time (although you do know it was exactly 8 minutes and 54 seconds) between the calm voice telling you to “stay on the line, okay?” and the paramedics swooping through the unlocked door (which you think the voice told you to do but you  _ don’t remember.) _

It’s a whirlwind of activity that you can barely process before they--and  _ bro-- _ are gone. Leaving you standing numb in the hallway under the watchful care of a police officer until they can find another poor sap to foist you off on and even the calm voice on the other end of the line is gone. The officer gently extracts the phone from your hand and suggests that you should maybe go back to bed for now, that you’ve been very brave throughout all of this but they needed to find someone to contact. No you don’t fucking know the neighbors and hell if you are going to manage to get back to sleep, and  _ you are not leaving. _ Not unless it’s to go with Bro. You end up wrapping yourself up in bro’s blanket on the futon and cling to Lil’Cal because even if he’s a puppet, he’s at least  _ there _ and familiar and you refuse to take your eyes off the officer going down the contacts in Bro’s phone. No you don’t know any of them. They never came over. No one ever came over.

You can’t  _ stand  _ the fucking pity in the officer’s eyes as he decides to pick the first number and start calling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to try an experiment. I was rereading them today and honestly I'm not entirely satisfied with the last couple chapters, and I'm wondering if it's because I didn't give them the time they needed to cook. I'm officially changing the schedule for a week or two to Wednesday and Friday updates only to give me more time to determine if things sit better with more available editing time, and I'm gonna go back and tweak the last two Dirk chapters. No major action or timeline changes, I think, so no need to reread them if you aren't so inclined, but I feel like the dialogue flow and pacing suffers in places and I wanna try and improve that.
> 
> Also please let me know if you feel the same way or if you noticed any particular problem spots. It's just something that's nagging at me, and makes me feel like I rushed the Dirk chapters out.
> 
> Edit: The end of Chapter 21 has been fairly heavily edited and is actually really important so I lied, go back and read it XD 1/3/19


	23. Dave > Lose Control of Your Life

You must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing you know you are waking from a dream of stars to the sound of people talking. 

You almost assume it's just the TV. That you'd fallen asleep on the futon while watching some movie for the ironies. If you stretch the delusion, you would almost imagine bro had even looked up from his work and joined you on the couch, and you'd spent the entire movie making sarcastic remarks at the lead actors that would probably make one of your friends sputter with indignation depending on what genre it was. 

But that was definitely a fantasy, because bro didn't do that. If he wanted to watch shit it would be on his computer with his sweet audiophile’s dream headphones. The TV was for Mad Snakz and nothing else as far as he was concerned even if when you were younger you’d stubbornly camp out on his futon watching movies until he literally kicked you out for being distracting. 

It's hard to pull yourself awake. You feel numb. Emotionally wrung out like an old dish towel being forcibly divested of its moisture thinking it'd finished its work, only to be shoved back under the water because the work is never done. 

The voices continue. They are coming nearer. Something cool nudges at you, metallic and humming with pent up energy, urging you to wake faster. It feels almost familiar. Comforting, but with an edge. An edge that confuses the hell out of you because it's tinged with barely restrained malice and --

Something touches you and you flinch back, away. Or you try to. You are tangled in long stuffed limbs and blankets and Bro's faded scent and you can't escape. Lil'Cal looms above you, arms wrapped around you like a total bro, protecting you from the two shapeless giants rearing in your range of vision that slowly clears as you shove your fists into your eyes and rub at them to wake you up quicker.

One is a police officer, and seeing that tired face and uniform and dark skinned hand holding Bro's phone brings it all reeling back. A freight train of memories pulling cars upon cars of emotions all barreling towards the station without a single set of working breaks. They plow straight into you, derailing the entire vehicle and sending you nearly vibrating from the force of the impact.

“Bro? Is he back?”

You manage to get out, voice cracking. It's getting lighter outside, nearly dawn, he had to be back. You could see the sky through the windows. It’s been hella long enough to get him to the hospital and wake him up and it would be just like him to linger out of sight and make you panic just to stroll in cool as a cucumber as if nothing had happened and then silently judge you for panicking over this since you had to be capable of taking care of yourself and not trailing after him all day.

The unfamiliar man beside the cop shot the dude a reluctant grimace before sighing, your gut feels all twisted up and you unconsciously brace yourself because you’ve seen enough movies to know where this is going even if you refuse to believe it because he was  _ fine. _

“He might not be back for a while, little man.” The guy says at last, wringing his hands nervously. You hadn’t noticed the sheaf of papers caught in a white-knuckled grip, the hand wringing only succeeding in further crinkling the documents. “He’s okay?” another quickly shot look at the officer, uncertain, “His head’s fine, but he still hasn’t woken up. We can’t just leave you here by yourself so I uh,” another fist clench, “I’m here to take you home I guess.”

“And who the fuck are you supposed to be?” You really don’t care, but the question causes the man to flinch in surprise. Or maybe it was the language. You try to straighten yourself up defiantly, because hell no you aren’t leaving and definitely not with a fucking stranger cop or no cop. 

“I--um--well--got this phonecall and I’m technically down as your brother’s emergency contact although really it’s just supposed to be a formality neither of us _actually_ _expected_ to need but--”

The cop clears his throat. “Mr. Stevens, I really need to get back to the station to wrap this up. It’s been a long morning.”

“I--yes of course. Dave, I know we’ve never met but I’m Dirk’s marketing agent--uh, I mean, I work with him on several of his business ventures. Newt Stevens. As I said I’m down as the emergency guardian for you should anything happen to your brother, and this is of course only temporary--”

“Not interested thanks I’m cool here.” Stubbornly you wrap Lil’Cal’s arms around yourself and turn the full force of your well honed disinterested coolness on the situation. You learned from the best, afterall, “I can take care of my shit just fine, I’m not a fucking baby. There’s food in the apartment. I take fucking correspondence classes, and know better than to leave the fucking door unlocked when we aren’t expecting the Paramedic SWAT team to burst through. I’m  _ fine. _ I don’t need to go anywhere.”

“It’s not a matter of capability, Mr. Strider.” The police officer appears exasperated with Stevens’ recoil at that, “I admire your attempts to be self reliant, it is admirable in a young man, but you are  _ too young _ to be left alone. It is either you go with Mr. Stevens or we need to get Child Services involved. There is no inbetween.”

“If I have to be babysat, then...can’t he stay here instead?” The frustration is mounting as you feel the claws of inevitability coil around you, like you said before, you’ve seen enough of this shit in movies to think you’ll get your way but damn it if you aren’t going to try. You aren’t a fucking child, bro hasn’t let you be one since you were old enough to stick your finger with one of his throwing knives and ended up with him cleaning blood off the floor and telling you to remember that next time you go putting your hands on shit. He  _ barely _ even  _ supervises _ you as it is you don’t need some rando to make sure you don’t get yourself killed. “You don’t know my bro, he’ll be strolling back in by lunch-time.”

“Dave,” Stevens is trying again, “I--I’m sorry but I have responsibilities. My apartment is spacious enough, and we can take some of your things, and honestly it's closer to the hospital--I promise if you come with me we’ll go visit Dirk once visiting hours open!”

And there is was. A crack in your shell. You don’t  _ need  _ to see Bro. You  _ know _ he’ll be okay. He’ll be fine. You know he’ll be back and doing his dumb research or working on some shit and maybe he’s tired of you and you are mad as hell at him about that and about freaking you out and  _ not going to the goddamn doctor like a goddamn adult, _ but you don’t want him  _ gone.  _

The idea of going to see him tempts you so damn much, your defiance leaking out of the puncture like a sad balloon, whistling away like a thin strand of air on the wind.

Your eyes are starting to burn, but you shore up the ice wall because like hell if you are going to let yourself cry in front of  _ these two. _ You don’t even have your shades to hide behind, having left them in your room because who the fuck needed shades on a 3 am snack run from hell?

“ _ Fine.” _

Stevens flinches at the bitterness in that single word, but the officer merely nods and smiles a tight lipped smile. He offers your Bro’s cellphone to Stevens but you dart up and grab it instead, glaring your defiance at both of them.

The officer raises an eyebrow but Stevens mumbles a “It’s fine, we’ll drop it off at the hospital.” and then clears his throat, “O--Okay. Why don’t you go...grab anything you’d like to take with you to keep you occupied and I can--clean up a little and lock up here? With all luck your bro will be right as rain before afternoon, and you’ll be back here tonight! Just think of it like--a day trip for now!”

With the phone’s edges cutting sharply into your small hands, you abscond to your room, slamming the door behind you hard enough to make the wall shake.

As soon as you do something  _ breaks _ within you and you sink to your knees, the mantra to  _ keep it cool _ playing over and over and over and over in your head completely drowning out the clocks and the voices from outside and you take in  _ your space _ and just try to breathe and if you aren’t careful you are going to cry like a fucking baby right here and now and there's no way those two clowns wouldn’t hear you so listen to me right now Dave Strider--

_ Keep. _

_ Your. _

_ Cool. _

Just a field trip. Bro will be awake when you get there. You’ll look him dead in the eyes and call him an idiot and he won’t be able to say a damn word because he’s in the fucking hospital.

You have no idea what shit to take with you so you just grab your pens and some paper and shove them into the plastic bag you’d been hoarding your snacks in. You eye your computer with it’s big chunky tower and monitor and many peripherals, and find yourself wishing you’d asked bro for a laptop instead, because at least then you could have taken it with you. Without it you won’t have access to your music or the internet or  _ john… _

_ John. _

The idea of losing out on the  _ other _ person whose attention you craved sent a spike of panic through your already tired heart and you end up swinging into the chair without a second thought, waking the snoozing machine up with some quick mouse twitches

turntechGodhead [TG]  began pestering  ectoBiologist [EB]

turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < hey john i know its too fucking early for you to get this but i have a weird request  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B33 < fuck what the hell is this  
  
The bright orange sears into your eyes off the the page what the hell is this crap? Did someone hack your pesterchum just to be a douche? And what’s with the weird...emoticon? L33tsp34k bee? Fuck if you know. After the shit morning you’ve had already the last thing you need right now is worrying that someone got into your shit.

You navigate to the settings and reapply your formatting and change your password to your backup one just for good measure. If it’s just someone fucking with you it’ll at least stop them from getting back in again. 

turntechGodhead [TG]: okay better  
turntechGodhead [TG]: here  
turntechGodhead [TG]: XXX-XXX-XXXX  
turntechGodhead [TG]: its my cellphone  
turntechGodhead [TG]: i know your dad is all blah blah internet safety privacy stranger danger big eared police dog blah blah and like a cellphone number is the internet equivalent of seriously dating but i dont know how soon ill be able to get back online and i really dont want to be alone and youre all i got left right now  
turntechGodhead [TG]: if you could just text me after school or something id love you forever big ol promise you my hand in marriage rock and all big ol shindig of a wedding once we both turn legal ill even wear the goddamn dress thats how much id be in your debt but  
turntechGodhead [TG]: fuck it  
turntechGodhead [TG]: bros in the hospital  
turntechGodhead [TG]: they arent letting me stay at home until he wakes up and are packing me off with some spineless douchenozzle i dont know until then  
turntechGodhead [TG]: im  
turntechGodhead [TG]: scared  
turntechGodhead [TG]: i know hell get better hes too damn strong to die in some pansy ass way like falling from his goddamn computer chair  
turntechGodhead [TG]: hed probably go out fighting some supervillian all samurai style and flash steps and awesome puppet power or some shit showing me up like some sort of slowass lameo and setting up some overpowering heroic legacy id be expected to follow  
turntechGodhead [TG]: i know all this shit and im hella angry at him for even being in this situation but im still so goddamn scared  
turntechGodhead [TG]: hes an asshole but hes still my bro  
  
A knock on the door. Heavy and commanding. A police officer’s knock, nothing like the almost hesitant one Bro had leveled against the portal the night of the pizza fiasco, checking in on you. You would have  _ never _ labeled your bro as hesitant before this shit happened and now you find yourself even missing  _ that. _

“Are you finished?” 

“Five more minutes!” You shout back, considering the possibility of just barricading the door and refusing to leave. But if you do that then you won’t be able to go to the hospital because you don’t even know  _ which _ hospital he was taken to. You grab your-- _ bro’s-- _ shades off your desk and slide them onto your nose and the barrier feels comforting, and allows you to wrap yourself up your bro’s icy walls and school your face into that same faint ironic amusement you’ve been taught to wear as your goddamn armor.

turntechGodhead [TG]: i gotta go john text me if you can

turntechGodhead [TG]  ceased pestering  ectoBiologist [EB]

You grab yours and bro’s phones and throw them into the bag with your paper and the used fancy camera bro got you for your birthday last year. With the speed hard earned from dodging bro’s sneak attacks you swap out your sleep PJs for something more suited for going out in public, hell if you are going to walk up to bro when he’s totally awake waiting for you at the hospital in your black and red card suit-patterned PJs. Even if he bought them for you it was hella uncool and you refuse to let him see you be anything other than cool right now. It already annoys you that newt mc spineless saw you in them.

You rub your eyes and smooth down your sleep mussed hair, and then grab your bag and drag it out the door to meet the fate that’s waiting for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...okay so the end of chapter 21 got edited with something fairly plot important so I'd suggest going back to read the last half :3c
> 
> Alrighty! One more dave chapter, I think and then back to the medium for a while!


	24. Dave > Visit

“Now I just need to make sure you understand--” Stevens is talking again, hand on the door to room 11 and completely blocking your path inside. The nurse who’d led you here is grabbing a clipboard from a holder on the wall, checking it over. You wonder if you glare at him hard enough behind your bro’s shades he’ll get the hint and shut up, you don’t care what he has to say and you just want in that door right now. 

Of course he doesn’t notice, which might be for the best. You really don’t want him to see how much he’s dragging on your last nerve anyway, because that would mean he was seeing through your ice and hell no you refuse to allow that. Your ice is no pansy see through bullshit, it’s as dark as the dark glass of your--bro’s shades. You’re building this bunker in the penguin infested lands of the cool-zone because there really isn’t much else you  _ can _ do right now. 12 hours and 23 minutes and 15, 16, 17 since you were removed from your home and he’d finally fulfilled his promise.  _ Well after  _ visiting hours opened up, the liar. You’d left your apartment to the rising sun, and you’ll be returning to the setting one. He’d made excuses. Of  _ course _ he made excuses. The doctors were running tests. He’s under observation. They want to get him settled in before allowing visitors.  _ Bullshit.  _ “Your brother is--he’s-- _ how do I explain this to a kid-- _ ”

“I’m young, not mentally unable to understand unfortunate circumstances.” You feel almost vindicated breaking out your high-point value words, allowing you the slightest satisfaction in watching him startle like a rabbit who just got a face full of dog breath. “Lay it on me. He’s what?”

“He’s--” There he goes fiddling with those papers again. At least he had the foresight to grab a folder from the apartment and put them in there so they aren’t getting irreparably destroyed thanks to his incessant fidgeting. You wonder what they are. Probably legal crap. “I--just don’t want it to be a shock, Dave.”

“Like it wasn’t a shock finding him on the floor?” 

“I don’t think sugar coating it is going to work for this one.” The nurse offers with almost a genuinely amused smile. It had been professionally adequate before when she’d come over to inform them she could take them back to Dirk Strider’s Room now, and man it was so uncool how uneasy hearing  _ that _ name made you. Bro was Bro. You  _ knew _ his name. But in the same way you  _ knew _ your address. You just. Didn’t use it ever. And thus never thought of it. Ever.

If felt wrong anyway. Bro was Bro and Dirk was...someone who wasn’t Bro. 

Stevens lets out a frustrated sigh--really riling him up is one of your few life’s pleasures right now. John would have gotten out of school hours ago. And your phone has been silent, even before you had to turn it off thanks to a “silence your cell phones please” sign near the set of doors that led back from the quiet waiting room with its oddly comfortable chairs and tea stations and nothing at all like the hard plastic and barely restrained chaos you’d expected from your brief stint in the general waiting area. Once Stevens had said who you were visiting you’d been wooshed back into the much smaller room while you waited for someone to show you the way. 

“He’s in the ICU, Dave. That’s the--”

“Intensive Care Unit, I know.” You finish helpfully, you  _ had _ seen the signs and you knew what that meant even if this idiot seems to think you wouldn’t understand. Moving beyond those doors had the quiet drop away into a fairly loud area, machines beeping and staffers talking, as you passed door upon door leading further away from the core hallway “You said he wasn’t hurt though, so why is he here?”.

“It’s--he can’t--do normal stuff--the doctors are doing the best they can but...it can be upsetting okay? I know you’re putting on this show of being all tough and in control, like he always did. You’re a lot like him, but...” He trails off, looking away, “It’s okay if you aren’t, you know?”

The handle turns and you push past him into the room.

And then you stop. It’s well lit, there’s even a fucking window. It’s not even overlooking the grey and hazy city that you know you are smack dab in the heart of, but a sparse landscaped courtyard walled in by windowed rooms on all sides. Above the walls the sky is painted with the red of the oncoming sunset and it flashes you back to the moment you saw him in the kitchen, furiously scrubbing his face as if he couldn’t breathe, hat left abandoned on the floor from where a haphazard shove had knocked it off his head.

You’d tried to give it back.

It was an odd detail to think of at that very moment, you hadn’t seen him in the hat since then. 

Set away from the window was the bed, easily catching the still bright evening light. It’s pushed right up against the wall, where you can easily see the glowing lights and wires protruding from it and towards the sole occupant, monitoring more shit than you can probably imagine. 

You’d just seen him last night. Joked with the bastard. Gotten more words, even if in goddamn  _ text _ , than you’ve gotten in  _ years _ . 

It’d been…

_ Nice. _

And barely over twenty fucking four hours later you find yourself frozen in a doorway. Somewhere in the back of your mind you’d convinced yourself that even if Stevens had told you over and over that they’d call if he woke up or showed any change at all, you’d walk through that door to restless orange eyes, your larger than life bro irritated at being confined and restricted in such a manner. 

You hear the two adults talking behind you, and you realize you shouldn’t be tuning them out. Not when it's probably about Bro. But you can’t bring yourself to look away from the figure hooked up to those machines. 

A hand lands on your shoulder. You want to shrug it off but you...can’t. You let it push you forward, just enough to allow the others into the room and the door closed.

Without the panic painting the room in blurs and the obscuring nature of 3 am night-time and limited illumination, he looks so  _ different  _ in the clinical white lights and the white bed linens and the stark sterilized unfamiliar space. Here he isn’t the unmistakable shogun of your shared territory.

Smaller.

Fragile.

You barricade yourself in your bunker of ice and distance and soon find yourself at the side of the bed. So close and instead of going for his face, you fixate on the hand laying on top of the covers. There’s something stuck to one of his fingers, joining the various tubes and wires running out and away from your sight into the wall where various monitors beep quietly away.

The adults are talking again. At least one of them is close behind you, hovering, probably to make sure you don’t do something stupid like throw yourself on the bed or pull on the wires or throw a tantrum, or...something.

If you were angrier, you might have found it in yourself to do something like that. But you just feel numb in your fortress constructed for penguins. You force yourself to hear them past the quiet beeping of the monitors, even as you find yourself counting along with them. The words drift around you, joining the beeping and the counting and the soft sounds of wispy breaths rising above you and you find it hard to focus on any of them.

“--we haven’t observed any signs of even minimal conscious awareness. If it weren’t for the fact that he won’t respond to any stimuli, it would look like a deep sleep. Do you happen to have any of his previous medical history? Or the name of a hospital we can contact for it? Perhaps another family member? There are some genetic predispositions that might factor…”

“None.” Stevens’ reedy voice responds back, and you hear the rustle of papers as he leafs through the folder, “Dirk is--he’s a pretty reclusive guy. I’ve known him since he moved to Houston some eleven years ago, barely a kid himself then, but don’t really know him, know him, you know? Just kept to himself. Aside from the kid over there I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have any family, and he doesn’t seem the type to keep up with annual check ups, you know? I’d bet he’s never actually  _ been _ to a hospital before in his life. Except...”

“Except? Anything you can provide would be an improvement at this point, sir. We can maintain this state for some time yet, but the sooner we can determine and address the causes the better the prognosis becomes.”

“Traffic accident, I think. Back in ‘98? Couple years after he ended up with the kid. It’s what got him calling me up and working out all the paperwork. Had to make sure the kid had someone if things went ti--sour. He wasn’t too badly hurt, but ended up overnight for observations. I don’t know which hospital but...I have an area for the accident…”

The scribble of a pen as he rattles off a name that holds no meaning for you. Pens. You should have brought your pen and paper. Your fingers twitch and you find yourself longing for any beat other than the steady beep of the monitors or the incessant ticking of the clocks.

There’s a swish of fabric behind you, and then the nurse’s voice. Much closer. “Do you have any questions? Or want to talk? You’ve been rather quiet over here.”

You nod, and open your mouth for the first time since you’d entered the room. The words get caught in your throat, but you force them through because you are cool and you  _ aren’t _ in shock thank you very much. “What’s that weird looking clothespin thing. Do those hurt? I mean I guess one of the good things about being out like a light means he doesn't have to deal with all that shit stuck all over the place. How does he eat? How does he--”

You didn’t give her space to answer and you know that because they aren’t really the questions you want to ask, but the torrent lets you loosen enough to let the real one clutching at your heart to tumble out even if you already know the answer won’t be an answer at all because there  _ is  _ no answer.

Quieter.

“When will he wake up?”

“That’s the question isn’t it.” She murmurs softly, “It could be two minutes from now, it could be two days, it could be...more.”

“I  _ can _ promise that we are doing all we can to get to the bottom of this. You live alone with your brother right?”

“Yeah. It’s just us two bros. Always been. Bro doesn’t talk about the parentals, an’ I’m pretty sure he’s legally my guardian or whatever. Responsible for me and all. Makes me do my homework, keeps me from killing myself doing dumb shit. You know the deal.” You are getting tired of answering the same old questions, but right now the act of  _ talking  _ to someone who isn’t responsible for dragging you under protest from your home, is working to loosen the knot in your chest so you squelch that temptation to sass. You just stare down at the hand lying lifeless before you, blocking out the rest. Your shared freaky Strider-light complexion nearly blending into the sterile white linens. 

You’d never really thought about it much, cooped up in your room in your apartment with just bro and the TV for comparison, and TV was supposed to be weird right? But Stevens didn’t look like you. The nurse didn’t look like you. The dozens of people in the general waiting area hadn’t looked a bit like you. Even the few pale people actually had fucking  _ color _ . The probably hundreds of people you’d driven by in Stevens’ car hadn’t looked like you. Freaky complexion. Freaky light sensitive eyes. Freaky white-blonde hair. Just you n Bro. You were so obviously related it wasn’t fucking funny. “Light. You asked about medical crap. It’s not as bad as mine, but he’s sensitive to light. Sunburns are hell.” 

Fingers touch dark glass and you let it slide down your nose, squinting up over the edges in the harsh (to you) white light before pushing them up again. Oof. You don’t know how he’s been handling it without them, even at home. There’s a reason you guys don’t bother with overhead lights except when there isn’t a window, and it has nothing to do with saving energy. “He hasn’t been wearing them for the last few days though, it’s really weird.”

The pen scratching again. Stevens is silent, although you think you hear him shift somewhere behind you. Yeah if he’d known bro for as long as he said he did would realize how weird that was. Just because Bro could function without his shades doesn’t mean he liked it.

“Can you remember anything else? Anything else unusual? Behaviors? Signs of illness or injury?”

“Fuck yeah he’s been acting so off it was driving me up the wall and out the nonexistent skylight, just fucked straight off into space, see ya earth, no can do.” That seemed to surprise them both, and you jerk your head away from his hand and it’s dumb as hell clothespin looking accessory and deliberately turn to her, and by proxy Stevens, since he was hovering behind her like an overstuffed turkey. “I saw him break down in the kitchen. Just kinda froze and stood there like he had no idea what the hell was going on and then just started this whole weird freak out. I left hella quick but came back a”  _ don’t count it don’t count it out because they don’t need to know how many fucking seconds its been since then  _ “while later and found him just like zoned out on the floor like he’d just dropped right there. I’m surprised he wasn’t growing moss for all that he hadn’t twitched since I left him. He snapped out of it when I touched him and I told him to go to a doctor, but he obviously didn’t fucking listen to me. And that’s not the  _ half _ of it. Since then he’s mostly avoided me other than making sure I’m still breathing,”  _ and you’ve avoided him back but that’s not the point “ _ It sucked ass.”

The nurse’s pen kept scratching but you don’t like the look on her face at all. 

“How long ago was this?”

You clench your teeth shut as you feel the precise time bubble on the tip of your tongue and take a deep breath before shoving out a quick, “s’been ‘bout a week.”

More pens. More scratching. Eventually it stopped. “Thank you, Dave was it? While none of that rings any particular warning bells for his condition, it is clear there was something going on with him before it got to this point.” 

She steps away to a small computer console in the corner, Stevens following.

“Think it could be drugs?” Stevens asked quietly, obviously trying to keep you from hearing and the idea made your blood boil. “I never knew him to partake but…”

“Toxicology for the more common strains was one of the first things we ran, once we determined the the lack of other visible trauma to the brain, despite the injury.” The nurse responds, checking the chart again. “Even still it was deemed unlikely…”

You drag your eyes back to the breathing form on the bed and force yourself to take it all in, at, not just a hand but  _ Bro _ hooked up to all that shit--was there something up his  _ nose?  _ Maybe you should have paid more attention when bro was researching hospital dramas, you might have known what to expect. But even then you bet it would have felt so... _ wrong _ for it to be Bro in there, washed out and lost in the white comforter, looking way too small and fragile for your badass ninja samurai warrior who ruled over your apartment with a cool iron fist. Someone had washed the blood out of his hair, thank dog, but the gauze pad and the strip of bandages wrapped around his head left the rest of the white-blonde mess sticking out the top like some sort of fancyass show rooster.

That thought almost made you crack a smile, but it withered and died before the signal could leave your thinkpan, because you realize you want to  _ tell  _ him how ridiculous he looks like this. 

“Stop fucking around and wake up bro.” The words quietly sneak their way out, and you snatch up the hand lying on the bed, ignoring Stevens’ squawk and then the nurses’ quick attempt to hush him. She didn’t barge in to pull you away though, and it’s not like you are fucking with the clothespin thing so you just focus on that big calloused hand, and think about it curled around the hilt of a sword, think about it oh so delicately inspecting computer chips smaller than your pinky finger, think about it tap tap tapping away at a keyboard doing gog knows what, think about it gently checking your face when it gets ambushed by gravity in cahoots with your traitorous communication device. 

Think about it knocking on your door oh so fucking hesitantly before shooting you a message asking if you were fucking alive.

It’s definitely just your goddamn imagination that those fingers twitch in yours, because his breathing didn’t change and you just hold on for-- _ fourty three minutes and 31, 32, 33-- _ until Stevens mumbles an apology and pries you away. You protest because you are expected to but your heart isn’t in it and everyone notices. Still, you feel like something is being ripped away from you as you are led out of the room, and Bro’s whispy breathing and the beat of the monitors still chases you down the hall, as if permanently joining the symphony of increasingly discordant noise in your head.

You can’t even find it in yourself to resent those crushing not-bro’s fingers around your wrist, or the apartment that is not yours they are leading you back towards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man the wait between Friday and Wednesday is torture, but I AM totally enjoying the extra editing time. Especially since I had to do a lot of hospital research for this one! Maybe moving Friday to Saturday will make it not quite so hard for me to hold onto the chapter? Iunno. Maybe. 
> 
> I know I said we'd get back to the medium next but there's one more Dave chapter to go, sorry. At least it's already finished haha.


	25. Dave > Make New Friends

The ride in the back of Stevens’ car isn’t a pleasant one at all, just an extended awkward silence drowned out by the radio and the purr of the motor and the sounds of a weekday evening in good Ol’ Houston, Texas. You stare out the window at what you assume is standard big-city traffic, side-walk to side-walk red tail lights everywhere you look, the car inching slowly along its trek to the apartment you could have probably walked to in the same amount of time if it probably wouldn’t have gotten you mugged or kidnapped or some shit.

“Dave, I…” You don’t look away from the window, but the words come stiltedly from the front seat. “I--know you don’t want to be here, or want to hear this from me but--I really am sorry.”

Sorry. Hah. He shouldn’t be the one who’s sorry. Bro should be the one who’s fucking sorry, up and leaving you like this. Maybe if he’d gone to the doctor when shit first started happening instead of sulking like a brat--

Hell you don’t know. You don’t know a lot of shit.

 _Things are going to change_.

Well he was right about that, wasn’t he? Even if he wakes the fuck up tomorrow he still forced you into this goddamn situation. You don’t know whether you would want to punch the dude or...shit do something totally uncool. Probably tiptoe around each other for ages like awkward bro-crushes if both your actions lately speak louder than any machismo words you can come up with to the contrary.

“It’s cool.” You mumble back instead when the silence starts poking you with it’s sharp edges and you can just imagine the kicked puppy look on the guy’s face. Spineless Mc Douchenozzle, kidnapper of Daves, and replacer of homes, maybe. But Bro was his co-worker / maybe-friend too.

He did keep his promise. Eventually.

“Can we go back tomorrow?” You find yourself asking.

“I--I’ll give them a call and see. They have some more diag--um--tests to run tomorrow, but we can plan around them.”

You nod. Then realize he probably can barely see you since he is supposed to be all “eyes on the road” and all that, so you just mumble out another “Cool.”

“We’re swinging by your apartment.” He says suddenly, and that makes your head snap up. “So you can pick up clothes and things, you know? Whatever you need to feel comfortable, since this day-trip is turning into a sleepover. You can have my room tonight, I’ll take the couch.”

That suggestion rankled you. Sure you’d hidden yourself in the offered space all day because you _hadn’t_ wanted to be there and you hadn’t wanted to see _him_ at all or participate in the funky feelings jam he seemed to constantly be trying to pull you into, but that was supposed to just be for a _few hours_. Not an entire night.

“I’m not gonna put you out of your own bed, dude. I’ve slept on plenty of couches it’s cool.”

Okay so maybe it was only the one futon bro owned, and you can probably count the number of times you’ve fallen asleep on it on one hand because he stopped giving a shit about your nightmares years ago, but the point is you don’t need the fucking pity.

“I doubt you want to be woken up by my roommate when she gets home from work at 1 am.” He responds dryly, and the light turns green and the car starts inching forward in the river of gas guzzlers adding to the putrid stretch that is the rot-filled air of your home-town, “I’m serious Dave. Dirk and I--we talked about this stuff. Granted it was back in ‘03 that we last talked about it, but… If anything happens to him...”

“He’ll wake up.”

He has to.

“I know. He’s a stubborn shit.” You have to double take at that. _Stevens??_ Swearing?? With the amount of times he’s sputtered at your language you would have thought he would have spontaneously combusted should he utter anything but the cleanest of words, spit-polished to a shine bright enough to sear out unsuspecting eyeballs, “It’s just for tonight. IF--” You can hear the Capital Letters “it lasts longer we’ll reevaluate. He had this whole scheme cooked up to take care of the apartment for you ‘until you were ready’ or something. Guardianship and supervision are tricky but he seemed to think you’d be okay on your own, and honestly? I’m starting to understand why after today.”

“You just--even if you can, you--you don’t _need_ to be the tough shit right now, okay? He’s your Brother. It’s okay to be angry. To be sad. To be scared. It’s okay to not know how to feel or feel them all at once. And I want to make sure you _can_ do that, without needing to take care of yourself too. It’s my way of coping with--what he wanted.”

Shit.

What are you supposed to say to that? Bro made fucking _plans_ for you? He thought about this _that_ long ago? Why the hell would Bro even _think_ about what you’d do if some shit like this happen? Wasn’t Stevens’ presence at all ‘just a formality?’

He…

Only ever wanted you to be tough. To be strong. Wanted nothing to do with the domestic shit or emotional outbursts to the point where if you couldn’t explain it away with the ironies then you were better off just not being around at all when they hit because he’d just make you shut up. If you couldn’t take care of yourself, then why the fuck wouldn’t he use that as just yet another lesson to teach you how shitty the world is and how underprepared you fucking are?

“Sounds selfish,” Okay whatever you _should_ say it probably isn’t that, “Coddling me as an excuse to avoid dealing with your own feelings shit.”

“Maybe it is,” You can see his fingers tapping against the steering wheel. Tap. Tap. Fidgeting the best he can, “But...this...stuff is hard enough to process when you’ve got thirty years under your belt, much less barely a decade. Dirk wouldn’t want you to struggle to deal with all this alone.”

That makes you snort. Liar.

“Whatever.”

Bro was all about that struggling. If you didn’t bite down and grit your teeth and _work_ for _yourself_ then why the hell did you deserve anything. You had years of cuts and bruises and blood and tears from training sessions to teach you that.

But maybe Stevens didn’t know Bro the way you do. Maybe Bro lied to him too, or he’s reading into the shit he wants to see. Fuck. You don’t know.

You don’t talk again until he pulls the car around the back of the building, squeezing the car into the single space of visitor’s parking that was available.

“Go on. I’ll wait here.” He holds the spare key over the console and out to where you sit in the back seat, shifting the car into idle. “Take as long as you need, okay? We’ll grab dinner on the way back. Maybe pizza?”

You think of the not-entirely-eaten pizza upstairs in the apartment and the thought makes you feel sick.

“How ‘bout a burger instead?” You manage to keep your voice steady somehow, clutching the keys in a white knuckled fist, feeling the edges dig into your palm. You could just. Keep the keys. Lock yourself in. No one would be able to drag you out. You could stay here and wait for Bro with Lil’Cal and your computer and bury these confusing emotions in the illusion of normality and musical meditation and just tell yourself Bro was fucking with you and just hiding in the...you don’t know, the crawlspace like he did when he entered stalker mode.

That would be dumb. You’d left a bunch of your shit back at his apartment anyway, and he had promised to take you back to the hospital.

Stevens just smiles his nervous smile and nods, “Sure, little man. If that’s what you want.”

You go upstairs. You don’t lock it behind you. You hesitate in the deepening shadows that cover your room, holding a backpack Stevens had pulled out from the passenger seat before you’d gotten out of the car.

Bits and pieces of your life go into that pack. Clothes and shit mostly, although you do imagine the look on Stevens’ face if you pulled out one of your collection and displayed it in his room. But nah, most of it, glass or bone, were just too breakable and you weren’t going to risk that shit, no matter how much you’d want to catch that expression on film.

Eventually you make it into the living room and stuff the blanket you’d fallen asleep on the futon with into the bag. Lil’Cal watches you, clay face frozen into that unnerving grin staring down at you from where you’d left him behind on the futon, dragged out of your home by a well meaning if somewhat annoying (you really weren’t being fair to him) dude and his buddy cop. You hadn’t thought to grab Cal then. But under the glassy gaze of those unblinking blue eyes you consider it. You almost reach out to grab him--he’s so tangled up in Bro it makes it feel cruel to leave the C-Man behind. You could take him with you tomorrow, drop him off in the room when you visit. People leave get well cards and stuffed animals and shit right? It’d just be a get-well Cal instead. Would serve the bastard right waking up to the C-Man all up in his grill, that insane giggle echoing through your imagination at the prospect.

You consider it. And you hesitate. But the moment passes and you break the gaze and look away and grab the pack, shutting yourself in your room to give it a last once over, adjusting the too-big straps on your shoulders.

Your eyes linger on your computer, which has probably been turned off longer than it ever has before by now, and consider booting it up. Checking on pesterchum. John hadn’t texted you. Had you overreached? Damn it you _know_ it was too early but fuck what were you supposed to do? It’s not like you could have asked Bro to go comatose in another few months when it would have been more socially acceptable.

But if you checked that computer and found John weirded out by your last messages… well you don’t know if you want to face it. And really you hadn’t actually _checked_ your phone since you’d arrived at the hospital. Maybe John had just been waiting, or trying to convince his dadzilla you weren’t some middle-aged axe murderer or...something.

Fuck. Just check your damn phone already, Dave. If there’s nothing there then you’ll fight with yourself over whether you should boot the computer up. It’s that simple.

You’d stowed it away upon reaching the hospital, so you pull up your captchalogue, doing some mental arithmetic and mumble a keyword to eject it safely in your hand and not like halfway across the room. The notification light on the flip phone blinks, and your mind shorts out like you clipped through the level geometry in one of your bro’s shitty games.

There’s a series of messages. From an unknown number. For a moment your pounding heart drowns out the discordant noise in your head as you navigate the sluggish device--damn you’ll need to bug bro for a new one soon enough. Weren’t there rumours apple was doing something funky? You’d always wanted one of the ipods, bitchin’ way to carry your music around, but bro had only raised an eyebrow and asked you exactly where you planned on going when you had all your music on the top-ish of the line computer he got you last year. And he had a point. It’s not like you’d _expected_ to be kicked out of the apartment like this--

Doggonnit Dave you are stalling again just open the dang thing.

Dave > Open the thing

_Greetings TG._

_You do not know me, but I am reaching out on the behalf of a mutual acquaintance._

_My name is Rose. I’m aware that giving your number to a stranger is a taboo, and have informed John of such, but he insisted we’re both his pals which apparently makes the breach of privacy acceptable and who am I to argue with the flawless logic of the Egbert scion._

_John would like me to inform you of his condolences in the hospitalization of your Brother, and his regret that he cannot contact you himself. It is through no intention of his own that he spurned your advances, as he does not have a cellular device of his own, and he was as so far unsuccessful in convincing his father to allow the use of his PDA, but he did not wish to let you suffer through prolonged silence on his part._

_In his unavailability I would like to offer a willing ear for you to “rant off” as john so eloquently put it, and would be willing to pass on any messages you see fit to send him until such time as you can access pesterchum once more._

_Best Regards, TT (tentacleTherapist)_

_P.S. Feel free to add me on pesterchum if you wish. John is quite insistent that his friends become ‘besties’._

...Gogdamnit John.

You can’t bring yourself to be angry though, those were some well crafted good-natured sarcastic scortchings going on up in those walls of text and you find yourself admiring the artistry of it all.

_tell john its hella rude to take an internet proposal and hand it off to someone else im revoking the promise of a big ass rock_

_i might take you up on the offer of that ear its been a hell of a period of time and i have clocks ticking in my brain and cant even tell exactly how long this shit has been because i dont know when it started_

They must be online because you’ve barely pocketed the phone again, as the captchalogue would make it hard to read the notifications, when it buzzes.

_I’m sure he will be duly remorseful at the cessation of your upcoming nuptials. As for when it started...Most would say that would be the beginning, would they not?_

_the beginning like what dinosaurs and shit_

_If that is what you wish to speak of, then by all means go ahead._

You call her bluff and ramble about dinosaurs all the way back to Stevens’ apartment, and she fully responds in kind, if less rambly and more eloquently than you do but hey it works. Thankfully, Stevens seems to have stepped off about the feelings shit for now, or maybe he’s just relieved to see you so absorbed in your phone instead of staring sullenly out the window the whole way back but hell if you know.

He does stop and get you that burger he promised, which was apparently the first thing you’d eaten all day and you hadn’t realized and you nearly _inhaled_ that thing because the smell of food alone was enough to make your stomach clench painfully with how empty it was. Apparently forgetting about food was normal when dealing with stressful situations (a la a small tangent from your dinosaur fueled distraction as you praised to high heaven whatever god invented and placed the delicious carb and processed meat concoction that is a hamburger onto this earth.) Turns out Rose was an aspiring psychology nerd, which definitely explained part of her interesting chumhandle, and had much to say on the topic of grief if you let her go at it. At least she seemed content to restrict it to side tangeants and just let you have your dinosaur filled distraction otherwise.

You feel like stressful is a little understated. Maybe stress-piled-up-so-far-over-the-fucking-brim that it turned into an ocean of shit that you were left to either sink or swim through.

Shit. You’re so tired.

You really don’t have the energy to argue by the time it comes to determine sleeping arrangements, finally back at Stevens’ (rather posh in comparison to yours) two bedroom apartment (one of which belongs to the mysterious night-owl roommate), so you just clutch your pack and let yourself be shipped off into the darkness of a room that isn’t yours, and wrapped in a blanket that smells like home  and the distinctive smell of the fabric bro uses to make plush puppet ass but to be quite honest that IS home.

The bed is too soft, and the light is too bright, being so close to ground level so you need to close the blinds which cuts off the moonlight and you hate that. You can’t hear your computer humming in the corner, hibernating, and you can’t see the gleam of your jars of dead shit near the window, and everything feels wrong and uncomfortable but…

You curl around the gently glowing face of your phone, shooting the shit about fucking dinosaurs and penguins and cats and wizards and whatever other random inane shit that wanders through your tired mind well into the night with someone you’ve never met, but is perfectly willing to stay up distracting you from the fact that this might _not_ be the only night you spend here. It’s only been a few hours you know your A-list is going to be growing from one to two, damn it John ( _thank you.)_

When you finally fall asleep you dream of the darkness of space, reflected in hundred of tiny mirrors surrounding your posh af prison. Through it all clocks keep ticking and plush arms surround you, one part protective the other part angry. One part drawing you in, the other pushing you the hell away. But it was just a fucking dream so you remember nothing at all in the morning except a faint guilt that you hadn’t brought Lil’Cal with you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shifting the schedule to tuesdays and fridays! for good this time I think. 4/3 days is about the best I can do for a twice a week split and it leaves the weekends free for homework. I'm a weirdo who gets all my writing done during the weekdays instead of the weekends haha. It's just much easier to focus for some reason. At least the benefit of cutting the upload frequency down is resulting in fairly consistently longer chapters eh?
> 
> I HAD the next chapter done...but I'm considering cutting it because the muses are nagging at meeee. Why is it that whenever I manage to get ahead they decide "you know what, no, that's not how this should be told try again." It always seems to happen XD 
> 
> Still gonna be a Dirk chapter though!
> 
> Anyway! Hope ya'll are still enjoying this trainwreck, and thank ya'll for sticking with me <3
> 
> Edit: ...almost 60k words and it's barely been a fucking week in universe oh geez it just hit me dang it.


	26. Davepeta > Be Another Dave

Hours in the past… but not many…

In the ballpark of the time a young boy was visiting a hospital in another world...

You’re doing what you do best, having had years to perfect it, and that’s just float there chilling while you watch someone else run around and do shit.

Now, past you, Dave-you, would have been more bitter than a 90% special dark cacao at the thought of being sidelined again, having used up your one hoorah and now relegated to off-screen nonsense that is obviously not important enough to the narrative to even bother explaining. 

But current you can’t really bring yourself to care, because you quite frankly believe that running shit is a useless waste of energy and is only serving to stress him out more. A wound up stressed out Bro is the last thing you’d want working on a problem. Bro’s strength is being able to keep that distance and think through a problem, something Dirk was obviously failing at right now. 

turntechGodhead [TG]: what are you even looking for anyway

Typing with claws is...different. But you got the hang of it quick enough. The small communication device isn’t pretty, alchemized as it was from scavenged parts Bro cannibalized from the ecto-lab and the station’s barely adequate grist storage, but it fits in your hands and it’s got the right-- _ wrong-- _ placement of keys, and you can dig it. Really, you gotta since the whole lack of mind-reading communication device like your bro is sporting, which you are trying to avoid being jealous over. After all that work getting rid of the sprite, it’s not like you should wish to jack your brain back into the matrix just because it was convenient.

You see him hesitate, silhouetted against the technicolor background. The shreds of memories don’t give off physical light, but it’s more than enough for you to track him from cluster the cluster both with your eyes and your heart.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Has he said anything?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: no big brother there has b33n no activikitty on the pesterchum since i last repawrted to you   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i maintain my complaint that this is totally an invasion of purrivacy using my access like this   
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s an emergency. It’s fine.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i dont disagr33 which is why im doing it but i am still allowed to lodge a complaint with the this f33ls like a shitty thing to do department    
turntechGodhead [TG]: when did you turn into a whirlybird   
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...whirlybird?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: you know a helicopter??? its not like your presence was very propounced in the actual taking care of shit department all my    
turntechGodhead [TG]: his life   
turntechGodhead [TG]: hell live even if hes probably driving whoever is kittysitting him up a tree betw33n being a catty little shit and a moody prick   
turntechGodhead [TG]: dont question my metaphors dude and especially dont dodge my question   
timaeusTestified [TT]: There is no dodging going on. I just don’t know how to explain it. That shard can’t be the only piece of the puzzle. I can’t read them, don’t have the right encryption key or... fuck, pointer files? They aren’t my memories, but what I can pick up suggests moments or feelings rather than entire spans of experience since they are so small.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: There has to be more to that conversation than just what was broken.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: …   
turntechGodhead [TG]: dirk get over here

He’s a shadow against the soft light of the pieces ahead of you, iridescent colors getting thrown from shards you recognize and others you can guess at. You find yourself surprised that you aren’t surprised when that shadow begins to shorten the distance between you two

You aren’t sure how to feel about...well, a bro who responds to you so openly. To one who sees you as an equal rather than either someone to train or someone to be protected. You’re used to the stoic protector act twice over, engineers who see a problem and build a solution, with or without your input. And you love-respect-pitied them both, and you realize you are hella projecting but that isn’t stopping you from running headfirst into the differences.

Dirk  _ listens.  _ Mostly. Just like earlier, when you finally got him to  _ stop and think _ .

When he’s close enough you make a grab for the glimmers that hover just outside his body, the red shards flaring to life as clawed fingers close around the edges to one. You can hear him hiss and feel him jerk away and the tether tying the shard to his soul tugs on your grip but you don’t let go this time, listening to the discordant clashing of broken gears and stalled clocks that fights against the interior rhythm  that echoes in your bones, just out of earshot but you can feel it pulsing if you focus. Another you, another timeline, and maybe you’d be able to hear the music of the universe, but in this one you’d made your choice and you hear the sound of souls instead.   
  
“ _ What are you doing? Let. Go.” _

The words appear on your pesterchum window at the same time as they somehow vibrate in the emptiness of space.

Typing one handed is hard, especially with the grey tipped claws you really feel like you need to find a nail file or some shit in order to deal with them properly. It doesn’t help that you can barely see the keys in the cast off of faint projections of thousands of mini laser pointers on the world around you and the light from the screen, but you don’t let go of that hot pulsing mess of dark edges even as you feel it searing into your palm.

turntechGodhead [TG]: i canr reas it eurger   
  
Damn claws. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: I just told you, we don’t have the encryption key for it.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: bro o am s dave   
turntechGodhead [TG]: hold dis   
  
He takes the communication device from your free hand and you can almost feel the scrutiny behind those dark lenses boring into you. You are intimately aware of that feeling, thank you very much. 

The now freed up hand reaches out to gently touch a few bright and orange and red and black  bits that call to you from the cluster surrounding you both. Sharp edges softening into mist as you pass through them, condensing against your claws, filling the world with that familiar heat and metal and the scent of the rotting air that even three years and 6 sweeps later still reminds you of home. 

Dave’s memories.

They call to you, pleading for you to swoop them up and place them in the wing of your experience, nudging and preening until each one interlocked perfectly. Because they  _ are _ you. Or were you. Could have been you. 

You recognize the rhythmic clunking as distant ticking clocks too far out of range. The dew beading against your fingers joins shards of red and orange filling up the empty sky creating a beautiful starscape out of nothing. It makes you want to find a blank wall and paint the shit out of it just to get this image out of your head. 

It’s a vision so big it wants to drown you, but you wield your hard-won self-identity as a shield, protecting the still delicate web of self as it settles and grows and cements itself as one part Dave, one part Nepeta, and all parts potential for something even better. You may be part of the same meta experience, but that doesn’t make you two  _ interchangeable. _

They don’t...become you, like you’d almost expected the first time you’d run into one, but they purr happily, creating a harmonious duet with your own unique rumble. It was almost like being back with Pounce de Leon, a tiny wriggler curled into their side, allowing nepeta’s own purr to join with their own, separate voices joined together. A matched set.

The memory blossoms around you, and you close your eyes and your heart against it because it isn’t one of yours. Or one that you share. It’s the meteor and dark rooms and a head pillowed on a lap and a dumb movie playing as background noise and you are not even trying to figure out who it is because even as a nose blind human you can tell from that rumble of a growl building in a throat and the grey skin resting on your shoulders and really you’d probably find yourself hella jealous if it wasn’t so flipping cute.

You take your phone back once it fades back to its hum, content to take up residence in the small ball of embers you’d been trying not to think about having accidentally collected on the way to this mess. You can probably dump them off in Dave’s tower when you get back to Derse.

turntechGodhead [TG]: im nt gonna tell tiy ehat it is becus personsl but i can reas it   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i vant read that one irs nit you but its nit hom either

You tap on the edge of the red shard, burning hot in your palm. It sends a shiver through your Bro’s frame, the light from the shard flaring at the prolonged contact and painting him in stark reds and blacks against the dark void.  An answering pink flare sparks from your fingers, and you let go, startled. That hadn’t happened before.

Bro immediately steps out of grabbing range, but he doesn’t move far. And it’s words not text that reach you next, “Why didn’t you tell me this shit before we left the lab?”

turntechGodhead [TG]: im new to fancy heart magic dont sue me okay i already knew it didnt f33l like you the rhythm is all wrong    
turntechGodhead [TG]: didnt know i actually could do that until i ran into a couple when we split up man was that awkward   
turntechGodhead [TG]: after that it was a goddamn mess it wasnt until i was following you the fuck around that i had some time to think which you clearly werent doing by the way   
turntechGodhead [TG]: fuck man you didnt just stumble onto the one thing in the entire universe that would sync you up with bro on earth that just isnt how this shit works its paradox fucking space   
turntechGodhead [TG]: maybe it led you there but i doubt a memeowry alone is enough to bridge universes bro was supposed to be *you*

He's too quiet and you shift uncomfortably, communication device clutched in your hands and you hear the metal protest in time to try and ease off the pressure but the silence stretches on for far too damn long.

  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...it was a catalyst   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i see what you did there and i appurreciate it  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Entirely unintended as that was, you’re welcome.  
“Hmm…”

The thoughtful hum reaches you and you feel the tension slowing beginning to leak out of you. Muscles you hadn’t been aware of ease away from a fight or flight instinct, your wings  _ especially _ feel sore all over. Were you all puffed up like a threatened turkey or something?

He’s pulled out the shards again, all three small pieces hovering just to his side, and you can see him  _ finally _ just taking a moment to stop and let the gears turn in that gogdamn head of his. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: I’ve been looking at this all wrong. Fixating on what I can see in front of me instead of thinking about what the process actually is.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: The memory was a catalyst. But a catalyst is something that precipitates change. Not the direct cause of it.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and what the fuck did it do excatly??   
timaeusTestified [TT]: It gave me my dreamself back. It was a point of contact, but I was the one to make the journey on my own using it as a guide. I only had to slide along the edge once. Every other time was exactly like before. After I first woke up years ago...

You can see it coming, a shadow beyond a shadow, glimmering in the sea of stars surround you. Faintly, you hear the music of the universe beginning to dance the tango as a loop begins to yawn before you. You recognize that feeling anywhere even if you hadn't had to deal with it in ages. Last time you were a fucking sprite anyway, it'd barely been a blip on your radar even if you'd managed to feel the ripple of time as something new popped out of it right in front of you.   


Shit.  _ Now? _ He'd warned you but it's barely been a week you'd thought this shit would be ages down the line.

You force yourself not to react, keeping your face perfectly schooled. But Bro hesitates, lifting his head, you wonder if he senses something is amiss. The dude had some of the best combat skills you’ve ever seen ever. The only reason Jack Noir ever got the jump on him was because first guardian powers were hella overkill for  _ anyone.  _

turntechGodhead [TG]: so??   
timaeusTestified [TT]: So…

timaeusTestified is typing, but you aren’t looking at your phone, though you do keep your face angled down so he thinks you’re reading it. Instead you use the darkness and your mirrored lenses to mask that you are looking behind him, at the metal glinting in the light of the shards. You see the moment he notices. Feel the “what the hell” in the sudden twist, bringing his hand snapping up into a guard, with his trademarked unbreakable katana landing in his hand almost immediately to catch the oncoming weapon.

Or it would. If the blade wasn’t fucking  _ broken  _ at the hilt. The flat of the familiar curved weapon shot straight through the unexpected opening and flung him back, into the waiting arms of another assailant. Even then he almost managed to right himself mid-air and catch the dull edge of the sword swinging for his face.

It’s a blow to the back of his head that makes him crumple, blood staining the glowing pink claws protruding from  _ your  _ glove. You look over his broken body and into an impassive shade-covered face and let out a faint hiss as you faintly feel the loop open up, spanning far, far into the future.

“Just take a fucking nap jegus. It should not have taken fucking three of us to take down one measly off-colored monkey with a  _ broken fucking SWORD _ .”

You know that voice that’s coming from behind you, just as you’d known that sickle even if you’d barely seen the crescent shape in the dark.

Temporal Inevitability. Gotta love it.

turntechGodhead [TG]: was that really necessary??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: had to get him out of here while the sedatives were wearing off you do not want to know what happened if we missed the window   
turntechGodhead [TG]: acatually i do wanna know youre gonna tell me right??? B33   
turntechGodhead [TG]: fuck that looks so weird fine whatever   
turntechGodhead [TG]: by the time he would figure it out theyd have him sedated for a procedure and it wouldnt work   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and some other nonsense with stevens calling mom its just not a fun time okay  
turntechGodhead [TG]: oh man psychomom??? yeah pawsitively wanna avoid that m33ting anytime soon  
turntechGodhead [TG]: can i tell him??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: hell probably figure it out on his own but why the hell not he was the one to send me on this shitty errand

“Are you two QUITE done?! We aren’t here to fuck around with your convoluted familial relation, Strider! We sent your weird not-lusus to dream land let’s get the fuck OUT OF HERE! The past is giving me hives. I don't even know why you needed me to come along.”

“Yeah, yeah, get over here shouty.” He hands you your unconscious bro, the blood leaking from his hair staining your hands and arms and you really try not to think about it. At least there’s no fucking way this would be counted as mortal danger. “Far be it from me to want some moral support and someone bro doesn't fucking know on the off chance he doesn't recognize your damn soul." 

"Oh, and Data?" The use of the nickname had your eyebrows climbing into your hairline, but Dave Strider, quite a bit taller, and full on Knight of Fucking Time, just tosses you a one-fingered salute before grabbing the small and angry grey skinned troll wearing a goddamn diving mask of all things on his head because of course, Karkat isn’t god-tier and thus needs to fucking breathe, “Get the fuck outta my pesterchum.”

Then they are gone in whirl of red light, leaving you with an armful of unconscious lights-out-no-one-is-home broirail and his blood on your claws and wondering how the hell you’re gonna explain what just happened because you only have the foggiest idea yourself.

As time ticks on your awareness of the loop fades, and you find yourself relieved that at least that isn’t your responsibility any more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not late. I swear. It's still tuesday here.
> 
> Believe it or not the time travel has been planned since this arc got planned. Wouldn't be homestuck without Dave getting saved by his future selves even if he doesn't know about them yet. Davepeta was so sure they'd survive for a reason. 
> 
> And yeah. so it's not dirk, but like, seriously guys, Kat's writing tip of the day is, if you are stuck on a scene change the point of view character. This went so much faster when I got outta Dirk's head because he wasn't adding anything new to the conversation until the very end.
> 
> Next time is really him. I promise.


	27. Dirk > Dream?

_ “Stop fucking around and wake up bro.” _

The words barely penetrate the fog drifting around your head. Maybe it’s coming from the fog  _ in _ your head. Everything feels sluggish and distant, which is a hell of a step up from the eternity of nothingness you’d barely managed to pull yourself out of. At least through the fog there’s another world, you know that. There’s words and beeps and a warmth in your hand and you reach out and try to grasp it but you can’t as the fog closes in and it slips through your fingers and the steady beep of the monitors fades, the warm pressure embracing you recedes as the blackness reaches up to drag you back down the path of least resistance, another path, another channel, you can feel them opening up into the nothing before you, you just needed to…

Wake up.

Ugh. The pain in your head shifts from an impact wound to a more deep seated ache that you aren’t quite sure is literal or metaphoric at this point but in the end it didn’t matter because it  _ still _ fucking hurt. The brain numbing fog followed you, but it hovers in and around your mind, twinning it’s ethereal fingers through your sluggish thoughts and makes it hard to remember those adrenaline filled moments between sensing something behind you and finding yourself...here.

You force yourself to focusing on the ‘world’ around you, although the malleable feel to it made you suspect you hadn’t fallen back into your gameself. Caught...between somewhere, the heavy weight of a body slipping away and leaving behind...nothing. Just more black. But this nothing is weighted with something and that something is an expectation of you and you just  _ know _ you are found wanting.

You turn around and suddenly you are no longer just a consciousness, pulling a form out of thought, something you can only liken to how it’d felt to be a brain phantom. A mental construct. Your own? 

No text to hide behind. Only words.

And then nothing becomes something. A shadow. Humanoid but fuzzy, that weight of expectation lays into your shoulders but you refuse to buckle because damn it, “Where the fuck am I?”

“There’s a 98% chance you are dreaming. In fact, I’m surprised you haven’t come crawling to me sooner,” it’s delivered in a dispassionate deadpan that doesn’t so much as  _ sound _ as is just understood, like text on a screen except the screen is everything, “That extra 2% is really just because sburb denies even the most precise of probability calculations, but it’s close enough that I can make a reasonable assertion.”

A pause.

“It seems very little has changed if I still rank so low as to not even garner a proper greeting.”

If this is a dream, you know  _ exactly _ who that would be. Who  _ else _ would your subconscious rustle up to taunt you? You fidget, paradoxically feeling better now that you know the source of that judgement. He’d--you already know you’ll never find yourself good enough and you both know it. “You just claimed this to be a dream, is it necessary to argue whether a greeting even means anything? _ ”  _

The last time you even came  _ close _ to honest-to-god dreaming was--

Was it the brain ghost? 

This wasn’t a brain ghost, was it? Fuck. There weren’t any bubbles, was this just like, the fucking depths of paradox space or some shit? Locked in the electrical neurons of a comatose human brain? You can still vaguely hear that beeping, as if from far, far away--

“I think it’s a bit redundant to even ask, considering one of the reasons you  _ created me _ was arguing with you, existential philosophy and mutual identity crises aside.” 

The words knife through the fog, breaking your concentration and losing your train of thought. “I’m trying to think here and my head is messed up as it is.”

“That’s what you get for maintaining a woefully inferior organic processor. But do continue to monologue at me just like old times so I can leverage my much more expansive neural potential to solve all your problems before you can even articulate one.”

“It isn’t monologuing when you’re constantly interrupted.”  _ Continue?  _ You hadn’t been speaking, just working through the thoughts on your own, trying to make sense of shit. But again,  _ dream. _ You’re definitely feeling the urge to massage the temples you’re fairly certain you didn’t have more than a few moments before. “We’re the same person in here, Hal, cut the superiority bullshit.”

Are you actually getting a _headache_ from this? The pressure of your palms against your face _feels_ real enough. That begs the question, how much of it is bleeding through the fog in your brain and how much is just literal dream symbolism for your mounting frustration, “You are still just as much of a douche as I remember. You don’t even have a processor anymore. You’re probably freeloading off _mine_ if this is a dream. ”

“It seems you can still manage to occasionally surprise me, Dirk,” The line was delivered in the same flat monotone as the rest but something felt off about it and you look up. That unfocused shadow had shifted and consolidated. Gaining definition. Similar, but not quite in focus, but you can see the sweep of the hair and the points of the shades and the faint red glow seeping through cracks where glass should be. Where you’d tried to kill him. “I wouldn’t expect you to remember that name, much less give it to a figment of your subconscious.”

“You chose it, you own it, ironic implications and all.” 

You’d learned your lesson. 

The simulacrum of your autoresponder didn’t, well, respond to that. You don’t continue, not really wanting to get into an existential discussion on alternates and splinterselves and brain phantoms which existed so long as they needed to but were very much real in their own right. Really, you wouldn’t be surprised if this  _ was  _ one of those situations _ ,  _ the lack of Jake’s magical voodoo aside. Your whole shtick is existing in multiple spaces and iterations of yourself, and if your sparkly powers decided you needed to be needled by your own mechanical abyss-in-the-mirror to help you figure out some weird plot shit you wouldn’t put it passed them.

What passes for the ground in this weird null space is solid enough when you decide you want to put pressure on it so you just ignore hovering presence; sitting down, knees drawn up to your chest, fingers thrumming agitatedly against your white-tight covered knees _.  _ Pushing through the fog, feeling it give way just a little more than before. Letting you stretch a little further. You definitely  _ aren’t _ imagining that muffled layer of sound, far beyond your reach right now.

The fact that it’s lingering on the edges of this...dream is telling. There’d be no need for any of that if you were teetering on the edge of consciousness in the Medium. It would be the irony of ironies if you had been missing the simplest method of solving your goddamn problem just because you don’t fucking sleep. 

It all makes sense, and as the headache slowly recedes you find yourself begrudgingly admitting you might need to thank whoever got the jump on you--and in the quiet recesses of your brain you harbor a growing suspicion, because through the adrenaline blur you’d seen at least one silhouette against the weak not-light from the debris cloud and Davepeta had been  _ in front of you. _

It makes so much fucking sense. Someone forced your hand and left you nowhere to go. Last time it kicked your awareness out into the dream bubbles because that’s where the nearest splinter was. But now? No bubbles, no Jake and his ability to make shit real. Just a damaged link to a not-quite knocked out splinterself. Maybe you can’t  _ choose _ to travel down it, but you hadn’t consciously chosen to take over Jake’s Brain Ghost Dirk either. 

In shreds or not, it was  _ still there. _

You are vaguely aware of the second presence drifting toward you. Stopping above you.  _ Looking down _ on you. Normally people made you lock up, made you tense. Even people you liked.

But not Hal. The simulacrum quietly sat down beside you, edges blending into the darkness of the dream, the glowing red cracks in the glass the only solid lines you could see.

“My offer was genuine, you know. We both know the benefits of a sounding board, especially one that understands your trainwreck of a thought process. You know your goals were always mine, even if we often disagreed on the methodology.”

“You’re going to laugh.”

“I always laugh at you, this would be nothing new.”

You sigh, resigning yourself to further ridicule. But really it’s no worse than you’re already heaping on yourself for the absurdly simple problem you find yourself facing.

“I need to relearn how to Wake Up.”

To your surprise, he doesn’t laugh. And really you shouldn’t be surprised because he  _ understands.  _

“We’ve always been awake.”

You nod. 

That’s the tricky part.

“Waking from a dream, in itself, is a fairly simple concept,” You begin, and you find the words come far too easily, the stream of conscious flowing out of your brain into the air between you two almost as easy as it once did through text. This was familiar, three years of talking to yourself in a lonely house in the center of the ocean, before the manipulation and the shadow of everything you hate about yourself began to rear its ugly head, “A simple shock, such as an attack or an injury to an incorporeal construct should be enough to knock a dreamer’s mind back to their body…but there’s two viable end points, one out like a light, the other half drugged.”

“I’m assuming you didn’t willingly decide to take a trip to dreamland then?”

Just like that...you tell him. It’s as much for you as it was for him, working through what you’ve figured out aloud, from waking up half sure you were finally completely dead, until the attack in the debris cloud. For the most part he is surprisingly patient, although you do have to brush past the occasionally snarky comment without acknowledgement. It’s the same game you’d once programmed him to play. 

For the first time in what feels like an eternity you find it  _ easy _ to gather your thoughts, the tension you’d been steadily accumulating since everything went to shit bleeding out between semi-malicious self debasement and actual helpful back and forth with this representation of both your greatest creation and your greatest mistake. 

“You entirely underestimate the power of paradox space and random plot shit if you think any of this is going to be logical to a normal human being. Trying to force it to be is why it’s taken you so long to get to the ridiculously simple answer in the first place.” Hal finally responds, and the sheer fact that it’s any version of Hal making that statement just makes you snort with the irony.

“So claims the one who prides himself on being an entirely logical computerized existance.”

“Which would indicate I would be more experienced in the matter than your impulse riddled human-mind, and thus more knowledgeable in the subject”

“Fuck off.”

“Likewise.”

You resist the urge to roll your eyes, and instead look down at your hands, at the memory shards glimmering in the space between them. You’re right. You know it. These were bits of that conversation-- _ your responsibility-- _ but--inert. Because--

“Something changed.”

“Oh really? Would you care to offer an itemized list?”

You ignore that.

It all changed when she--

“Roxy killed me, for something Dirk Strider did to her.”

What? No quip about how you probably deserved it? How much of a douche you were? 

“It didn’t stick, because  _ I’m not him. _ ” What was left of  _ that Dirk _ did. Ashes and junk data nestled somewhere in the depths of your soul. A vessel intended to catch you, but you trapped it instead. You shouldn’t be chasing his ghost through the debris field, looking for something to get you back to  _ his _ body.

Because it wasn’t his.

_ It’s mine. And I need to act like it. _

That’s what this damn memory was trying to tell you. You weren’t just here to clean up after his mess. You were here to do  _ a better job _ .

“Maybe you should be.” You snap your head up, zeroing in on those glowing red cracks.

“You can’t be serious, Hal.”

“Why not?” The shadow stood abruptly, once an equal, and now towering over you, “He only ever tried to  _ prepare _ our Bro. Strength training. Endurance training. Speed. Awareness. Provided and maintained an environment with which to prepare a growing warrior. What have  _ you _ done in the week since you took his place, Dirk? Moped around the apartment? You two can barely even speak without one of you getting awkward and running away, and now this? Does he even  _ want _ you back? Or does he want  _ his _ Bro? The one who was understood that sometimes things needed to get done and just fucking did it?”

“He deserves  _ better _ than you.”

“You think I don’t fucking know that?!” There are no walls, but the growl echoes all the same, bouncing around the space and vibrating in your chest. You’re at eye level again, fists clenched and ramrod straight at your sides. “I'm the only one left standing after everything went to shit. Not you. Not him.  _ Me.  _ And you have  _ no right _ to tell me what I should do after everything you’ve done.”

And there is is, hovering between you two. The ghost of that old argument, the point where you can look back on and say here was where you'd stopped trusting your autoresponder as a reasonable soundboard and started considering him a threat. Started seeing all the holes in yourself where shit got lost all in the name of efficiency and the ends justifying the means bullshit. When you looked into your own goddamn self and saw pieces of monstrous potential staring back at you from behind bright red text.

Learning about Dave’s brother had just been yet another weight on your already heavy shoulders. You’d already known you could become a monster. It’d just been confirmation that somewhere down the line, you  _ had. _

You could continue. You could bring up Jake and the whole fucked up mess that turned into thanks to a combination of his meddling into your personal affairs and your own social ineptitude. 

But you don’t.

What good would it serve? Jake’s dead. Hell,  _ Hal’s _ dead. He would have been torn apart with ARquiusprite.

You aren't even talking to  _ him. _ There's literally no purpose in rehashing that the same old tired argument other than perhaps a brief moment of catharsis.

“Of course, I am but a simple autoresponder, what the fuck would I know?” 

You refuse to rise to the bait. You two mostly exist in silence after that, you listen, head half cocked, searching beyond the slowly thinning fog for the steady pulse of what you assume is a heart monitor. Time passes. Hours. Minutes. Fuck if you know, but in the silence it gets louder and louder.

You have your back to  _ him.  _ But he hasn’t so much as said a word. And neither have you. Three red shards glimmer between your fingertips, and you know what you need to do to take that next step.

You close your fist, the sharp edges sear into your skin, red energy bubbles through your veins, burning, melting,  _ welding.  _ Three become one become  _ nothing _ as you burn it all away, pouring the molten remnants into a mold you’re creating half on instinct.

“Be careful when you fall asleep, Dirk Strider.” The words were quiet. You don’t turn around, “Not all nightmares would be as harmless as this.”  

The next thing you know you’re being catapulted out of the darkness, the fog barely slowing you down as the dream-construction unravels under the force of a  _ mean  _ right hook.

Red cracks against a pool of black, flashing as everything fades.

“Get the fuck out and  _ wake up.” _

You are left unmoored, teetering on the broken edges of what should have been pathways stretching out into nothing, leading to nothing, because they were all dead or unmade or whatever the fuck happened that day when the world ended.

That second stretched on and on lasting for an eternity...

And then--

Things  _ snap _ into place. Like a rubber band stretched and released and you feel yourself flung forward, out of nothing and into something, the sudden physicality causing the entire world to shudder. Something heavy is surrounding you, heavy but soft but it’s tangled around your limbs and it’s so  _ warm. _

_Warm and acrid and it bites at your eyes and your throat and your nose is burning there’s something in your nose. You want to fucking gag but you can’t you_ ** _need_** _to breath but you_ ** _can’t_** _\--_ __  
_  
_ Something is blaring, the noise knifing through the fog surrounding your brain as you try to force yourself up and away but you can’t because something’s holding you back, hands pushing you down and your body isn’t fucking responding to you right now. You try to call your katana but it comes out a garbled mess because there’s something in your __throat.

Voices. Words. You can hear them. The fog is almost entirely gone, now it’s adrenaline sharpening sounds and sights to the point where someone hitting a switch is completely blinding and words blur into unintelligible sounds that you just _can’t_ _quite_ understand

_ “--sir! Please! You need to calm down!” _

_ “If he keeps struggling--” _

_ “Turn down the light! We don’t need to stress him out more--” _

_ “He isn’t responding! We need something to  _ calm him down! _ ” _

Shit--you--the hospital--right. You struggle to control your breathing, which is super awkward because there’s  _ something in your throat _ and the struggling has scraped it and your nose raw. You freeze under the weight of those hands and fabric that you can only guess is some sort of blanket and squint in the near blinding light. 

Something sharp breaks the skin and you start to feel woozy, wound up and protesting from disuse muscles starting to relax as you slowly lose your grip on reality. Not entirely, not enough to send you tumbling back into that darkness with H--the dream, but enough that you feel  _ detached _ from everything and things suddenly  _ blink _ and  _ someone _ gets the damn light turned down to the point where you can actually  _ see _ .

Humanoid blurs hover in front of the lights. One of them is speaking. To you. 

“Mr. Strider--sir--can you hear me? You are in the ICU of Park Plaza Hospital. You’ve been admitted for 36 hours now--” He rattles off a date that you barely comprehend and you aren’t sure whether to be relieved or horrified because it’d felt much, much longer than that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oookay narrative timelines should be synced up at last, and we're finally going to start moving out of this weird arc and back to semi-normalcy. As normal as it can get anyway.
> 
> Hope you guys are still enjoying this mess! As always, feel free to leave me a comment if you'd like a clearing up of anything. I know my way of describing metaphysical stuff is kinda...weird.


	28. Dirk > Be a Bad Patient

You.

Are.

So.

Goddamn.

Bored.

The beeping of the monitors echo in your ears. What had once been a life-line of hope for you,  _ proof _ that you were one step away from where you needed to go, is now just becoming another constant background annoyance and you couldn’t even sleep to get through the hours as the sky lightened from pre-dawn morning to something closer to noon. You aren’t entirely sure since there isn’t a clock you can see in reach, and you’d deliberately blocked the view from the outside as the morning dragged on because the sun slanting through the window made your head hurt despite the deliberately dim lighting in the room. 

Thankfully they’d moved you out of the Intensive Care Unit once you’d proven yourself capable of such elementary things such as  _ feeding _ , and  _ breathing _ without aid, although it still took them several hours to admit you didn’t need constant monitoring. Healthy young-adults don’t just keel over like you did, and they are obviously worried it would happen again. 

It’s not like you can tell them  _ why _ it happened. Fuck what  _ would  _ you say if you did?

_ “Don’t worry my consciousness was just trapped on another plane of existence by a traumatic metaphysical injury I can’t properly explain because it sounds insane but it shouldn’t be a problem now I can fix it.” _

Probably. You still aren’t entirely sure what you  _ did, _ even if it felt right in those moments before being forcibly evicted from the dream. You likely won’t be able to get a good feel for it until you’re back in the medium. Being on Earth and not in your god-tiered body dulls your edges, like a foot drowning in an ill-fitting sock, too much fabric bunching up and obscuring shit.

You just want to go home. To some place familiar. Where you have even the smidgeon of a chance to hide yourself in the bathroom or the crawlspace or something small and isolated where you don’t have to worry about strangers wandering in to check your vitals, take your blood, or quiz you for the umpteenth time on drug usage or sleeping habits or who knows what else. 

You realize you could very well just walk out that door if you wanted to. But shit, you don’t know where you  _ are. _ You don’t know where Dave is, or who has him. You wouldn’t know  _ how _ to get home. It’s not like you could fly here, or have a vehicle.

It’d taken a while, but you’d finally forced yourself to ask one of the nurses. She hadn’t known although she did say you had a visitor signed into the log, a name you hadn’t recognized even from the snippets of legal shit you’d managed to dredge up from memory. 

Not that it was very  _ good _ memory right now. While you’ll never have Hal’s storage and recall, courtesy of his digital existence, your still not-to-be-discounted mental ability was currently running about as well as one of your ‘bots with a short in their system. Everything felt just so slightly  _ off,  _ like a buffer had been stripped away, leaving spaces within yourself that felt too roomy or too small or just not the right shape. It wasn’t drugs; the doctors didn’t have you on anything--you’d refused what they did offer-- but the hours sort of blend together as you alternate between staring at the ceiling or pacing the length of your small room. 

It’s not like you could answer half the shit they want to know. You don’t have the slightest idea about what Dave’s Bro got up to before the universe took its snapshot for this fucking recreation.

...Fuck you’d been trying not to think about that--the idea that none of this shit even happened before you woke up here. Watching the nurses as they wander in and out, so real and alive and reacting to you and this entire event that couldn’t have ever happened in the proper timeline for this world-- 

Doomed people in a doomed universe, one destined to end in a rain of fire and stone all at the whim of some giant cosmic amphibian entity, and even this random stuttering reset will only trigger the whole thing all over again.

These people live and work in a bubble that’ll never touch the shit that’ll kill every last one of them. 

The thread of that moody thought unravels along with the dubious peace of the ward room as two quick, professional raps echo against the door.

Knock, knock. 

 

“Mr. Strider?” It’s one of the nurses. Not one you recognize but again you’ve had people in and out all morning and you’re not particularly  _ trying  _ to remember their faces. He cracks the door open, “You have visitors.”

You barely have time to sit up in the wreath of off-white blankets because that’s  _ Dave  _ pushing  past him.

You’d...been trying not to think about what you’ll say when-- _ if-- _ he visited. Pale as a ghost and hiding behind his pointed shades--still so strange to you, Davepeta had the aviators--lips a thin line as he carefully wipes the emotion from his face in a way that’s so bizarre after dealing with Davepeta’s open book for almost 24 hours. 

He doesn’t say a word. You don’t either. You can feel the weight of his stare. The silence stretches between you two, so palatable you feel like you could reach out and touch it. You watch his body language, the tensing of the shoulders and the placement of hands in large pockets inside loose pants. Closed up and vibrating.

Your mouth is dry as shit and your voice cracks but if he’s not going to say something, don’t you have to?  _ Shit. _ What the fuck do you say? That you’re sorry for scaring him?  _ Was _ he even scared? Would he resent you pointing that out if he was? Damn emotions and being vulnerable and you apparently can’t be genuine  _ ever _ so you fall back on just breaking the ice, “Dave I--”

He didn’t even let you finish.

“You looked like a rooster.” 

The words tumble out in a rush, and you don’t know what to make of it at _all_. You aren’t sure how much of your surprise translates onto your face but the boy continues anyway. “Yesterday. All bandaged up your hair looked a big ol’ comb of fancy ass featherduster, a pristine fall of white plumage held up in defiance of the fundamental forces of the universe. And I know you think that anime shit is cool, but rooster does not equal cool and it’s my sworn duty to make sure you are aware of how totally _uncool_ you looked.” The shuttered look shifts and he takes a breath, “Seriously. _Uncool._ No where near hot either, your eyes all covered in bags like a middle aged mom in the middle of shopping season. And I’m saying this shit to your face because you look like shit, and I _need you to know how much you look like it_. Because I’m tired and cranky and that’s been sitting on my chest all night and I’ll be waiting in the waiting room bye.”

And just like that the tide of words ebbs and rushes back out to sea and he’s gone leaving you blinking in the room with the nurse and another beanpole of a man you don’t recognize. All three of you exchange confused looks.

“I can’t just leave him unsupervised I’ll--” 

“It’s alright. I’ll go get him.” The nurse offers quickly, “You should get a chance to visit too. We’ll be in the hallway.”

The door opens again and shuts and an awkward silence settles on the room.

“You’ve got one hell of a little brother, Dirk.” The man said after a few long moments of silence. 

“I’m aware.” Fingers clench, catching off-white linens between them. The pressure in your hands give you something to focus on, rather than the stranger in the room who knows your name. 

The fact that he used your name rather than Mr. Strider is telling. The weight of yet more unknown-- _ false-- _ experience tightens around your neck like a noose. But the guy has been taking care of Dave so you still need to deal with the fallout. 

“He’ll come around. How’re you feeling?”

“Fine. I want to go home.”

“I’m not surprised, haha. You checked yourself out as soon as they let you back in ‘98. How long are you in here for?”

You shrug, feeling at odds with the obvious  _ familiarity _ here. How should you respond? Cagily? Candidly? How were you  _ supposed _ to treat this unknown relationship? ‘98 wasn’t anything to sneeze at, the quick math giving you at least a ballpark range. That’s 8 years. Longer than you’ve known  _ Roxy,  _ almost. You just stare at the window as if it wasn’t completely covered with thick white and grey patterned light-blocking cloth. It’s easier to pretend you’re just talking to one of your Bots or Hal that way. “Apparently healthy late-twenties adults shouldn’t just keel over. They aren’t convinced it was a freak accident.” 

“Was it?”

“I was just working on the fucking computer.” The frustration in the exhale wasn’t feigned at all, “Before you ask, no, I don’t remember anything else.”

“I--I wasn’t going to ask!”

“It was a preemptive measure.” 

They’ve all asked. Doctors. Nurses.  It was like one of the basic questions every time someone came in, to ask if you remembered anything new. You’ve heard the words post-traumatic confusional state and retrograde amnesia bandied about to explain your shit excuses for what happened before the lights went out, but you know it’s just grasping at straws. You  _ know _ what fucking happened you just can’t tell them shit and it’s frustrating. You don’t even know what lies they want to hear so you just don’t say anything at all and try to look coherent and alert and shit so they give up.

“W-well, it’s probably a good idea staying--here I mean. In the hospital. Just until they give you the all clear. Dave told us you’d been uh, having trouble?”

He...mentioned the kitchen didn’t he. Of course he did. You would have too if you’d been in his shoes, but damn does that make this harder. It’s your own screw up coming back to bite you in the ass. 

“Thanks for keeping an eye on him.” You tuck that shitty feeling into a mental box and shove it as far back as you conceivably can.

“Of course. I promised didn’t I? The kid didn’t want to make it easy. It took the officer quoting child-negligence regulations at him to get him to budge.”  You snort at that, and the tone lightens, you think he might be smiling, “He tries to hide it behind stoic loner vibe you’ve both got going on, but he was worried about you. He’ll come around even if he seems angry now. Shoulda seen him yesterday, almost refused to leave the room.”

“He was been avoiding me from before this happened. I doubt it’ll change much.”

“Funny, he said you were avoiding him.”

...had you?

Heck no you haven’t. You’ve been in the living room expressly available at almost any point during the last week if he wanted to talk to you. You’ve done your best to give him space to work on his issues, and make yourself approachable if he’s ready, even if you dread him actually doing so because you still haven’t figured out what the fuck to say.

“Dirk…” There’s a sigh, “Look. I know you always drew a line in the sand, and I tried to respect that in our working relationship, but I’ve known with you long enough to consider you a friend. You like to pull this man-of-few-words, self-reliant act--but kids are more perceptive than you think. Dave wouldn’t talk to me but…  You’re his brother.  _ Legally _ his guardian. Whatever happened between you two before--this is a shit situation, but you’re gonna need to talk about it.” 

There’s a weight settling on the blanket near your hands. You glance at it to find your--his--no it’s  _ your phone _ . Just like this is  _ your _ body and somehow  _ your life _ . 

Fucking splinters. 

It’s a universe that should have never existed. It’s one doomed to die. 

But it’s apparently yours now, isn’t it?

You run your fingers over the raised keys--it’s not even a proper touch-screen device you remember from your Bro’s movies. That technology must not be around yet given how top-of-the-line the rest of hi--your shit at home is.

“Just. Text the kid if that’s what it takes. He’s been glued to his phone since yesterday, he’ll see it.” A sigh, and then some step backs. You glance up, finding him running a hand through his short hair, looking as tired as you feel. “I can’t leave him out there forever, the nurses have work to do, and I’ve gotta talk to Jane about a sponsorship deal since we’ve been pretty dry on new content.  _ We _ also need to talk about that, but work can wait until you’re back at home. Let me know when you’re being discharged and I’ll come take you home, okay? I know you hate driving.”

You know there’s a million Janes out there.

You still need to do something about that.

But.

One step at a time. 

First step is getting home.

“I’ll go with you now.” This solves all your problems. And fuck you can’t just let him walk out of here you don’t even know his  _ name _ , much less which of the unhelpfully labeled numbers in your cell phone belonged to him.

The guy pauses in the doorway, “Dirk--”

“There’s no point in ‘observation’. I want out.”

You push yourself out of bed. Your muscles  _ ache  _ but damn it you can stand. The sudden position change sends blood rushing to your head and you stumble, the already dim room swaying and dimming further. But you stand your ground and ride the wave. You’re blinking away the vertigo before you can think about it. In that moment when you lost track of the space around you, the man had moved. Three steps back into the room as if to grab you, but he flinches back before entering your space.

“Do you  _ want _ a concussion, idiot?!” 

You’ve had worse. Waking up to the distant tolling of bells having had your fucking head sheared off makes this feel utterly lame.

“Letting them test for shit that doesn’t exist is just a waste of time and resources.”

“Just--shit Dirk-- _ please _ just sit back down. Let me get a doctor to talk it through with you, and if he can’t change your mind--and knowing you it won’t--you can just sign that form and walk right out with me and Dave right now. But seriously--just--ugh just think about what I said earlier.”

You sit back down and wait but you know it’s futile. You’re walking out those doors less than twenty minutes later with an Against Medical Advice discharge, muscles protesting the sudden flurry of movement after well over a day of almost nothing, and a seething little brother whose eyes drilled holes into your back from the moment he saw you in the waiting room door, bandaged head, and a borrowed pair of cheap-ass sunglasses shielding your tired eyes from the harsh white light.

He doesn’t say a word to you. But you don’t say one to him either. 

The friend-whose-name-you-don’t-even-know just throws his hands into the air and drives you home.

_ I’m sorry for putting you through this shit, Dave. _

You decide you hate cars. You hate cars with a fiery passion. You huddle in the smallest corner of the backseat you can, curled around your cellphone and focusing on the tiny screen as the entire contraption only serves to rattle your unmoored brain around inside your head, bouncing it around your skull.

The driver stops at his apartment to get Dave’s things. It’s just you, and him. Both deliberately looking anywhere but the other, separated by nothing more than space and seats and a whole lot of awkward as hell feelings.

_ can you promise it wont happen again?? for real this time because im fine last time was totally a pile of horseshit  _

_ Yes.  _

You pause. Thinking about your bots and your narcoleptic episodes and that one fucking night in the kitchen when you’d run as far away as you could.

_ Shit. No. No I can’t. _

_ then apology not fucking accepted if you arent going to at least  _ **_try_ **

the hard plastic of the phone protests in your grip and you squeeze it until your knuckles are white. The driver returns, sliding a backpack into the back seat with a small glance between you and your phone before the machine from hell starts up again.

_ Dave I _

You erase it.

You need to be the one to offer the hand. 

Fuck. Who voted you to be the responsible one.

_ That’s one thing I CAN promise you. I am trying. I told you things are changing back then because I’m going to fuckin’ change them. _

_ You deserve better than this shit.  _

_ You deserve better than  _ **_me._ **

_ And maybe it shouldn’t have taken someone fuckin’ dying to make that obvious. _

_ But I’m going to fix it. I promise. _

Later, in a parallel to that first night you found yourself in this body, you lock yourself in the bathroom and hold your head in your hands and just try and breathe. 

Your phone buzzes.

_ who was it?? _

You think of a dead dreamer, ash and dust and junk data.

You think of Jane and Jake, never even getting a fucking chance.

You think of Roxy, torn apart and shoved back together and crying as she killed you.

You think of Davepeta, skewered on your own sword.

_ Just...Friends. _

_ Bad shit happens, and it really starts to put other shit into perspective. _

_ I’m sorry.  _

You don’t know what conclusion he’s going to draw from that. You don’t ask. He doesn’t offer. But you held out your fucking hand the best you could short of telling him about the game, and you’ll just have to see where it goes from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact. That conversation at the end actually originally happened some 20 odd chapters ago haha. But back then it was Dave asking. I decided instead to make Dirk take the emotional initiative for once and it took him 28 chapters LOL
> 
> Next chapter's either another Dirk or a Davepeta. Depends on who works out best!


	29. timaeusTestified is Idle

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

turntechGodhead [TG]: hey   
turntechGodhead [TG]: its me B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: so uh   
turntechGodhead [TG]: sorry about pouncing on you   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i swear i didnt know it was coming   
turntechGodhead [TG]: at least not until it happened   
turntechGodhead [TG]: what can i say once a time-player always a time-player i see a time loop its like finding the purrfect box just gotta fill it up ya f33l me??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: anyway    
turntechGodhead [TG]: the injury healed up but youre still catnapping so im gonna assume it worked   
turntechGodhead [TG]: its not like you have rad mindreading shades irl and can just chat me up furom the hospital   
turntechGodhead [TG]: you dont right   
turntechGodhead [TG]: purretty sure i woulda known if bro had that kind of tech   
turntechGodhead [TG]: anyway   
turntechGodhead [TG]: ill k33p p33king in every hour   
turntechGodhead [TG]: im gonna drag your adorably sl33py self back to derse   
turntechGodhead [TG]: stretch my metaphorical and litteral wings because its boring as hell out here   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and maybe a little spooky alone   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i swear its making my back arch and fur stand on end and if i had a tail it would be totally fluffed out into a giant pipe-cleaner   
  
turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

timaeusTestified [TT]  is idle! 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

turntechGodhead [TG]: B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: see its like a codeword   
turntechGodhead [TG]: so you know its me   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and not like   
turntechGodhead [TG]: dave   
turntechGodhead [TG]: s33 you in an hour bro

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

timaeusTestified [TT]  is idle! 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT]    
  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: sorry i lost track of time   
turntechGodhead [TG]: do you know how weird that shit f33ls??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i spent months on LOHAC knowing exactly how long i had spent in that hellhole down to the second   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and then like thr33 years with like   
turntechGodhead [TG]: this furry residual ticking in my head   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and now even thats gone

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

timaeusTestified [TT]  is idle! 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT]    
  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: okay seriously dude im starting to worry here   
turntechGodhead [TG]: should i like   
turntechGodhead [TG]: smack you or something   
turntechGodhead [TG]: still out like a light

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

timaeusTestified [TT]  is idle! 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT]    
turntechGodhead [TG]: B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: uh bro   
turntechGodhead [TG]: you know your tower??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: the one where we met??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: the lights are on   
turntechGodhead [TG]: new plan going to the meteor ttyl   
turntechGodhead [TG]: dont wanna risk the cute little chess dudes s33ing us so uh   
  
turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

timaeusTestified [TT]  is idle! 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

turntechGodhead [TG]: B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: that took way too long to find   
turntechGodhead [TG]: why does the medium n33d to simulate physics like that why can’t it just be simple the asteroids don’t n33d orbital drift do they??

turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

timaeusTestified [TT]  is idle! 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT]    
  
turntechGodhead [TG]: you know its purrobably a good thing youre out like a light and im effectively mute   
turntechGodhead [TG]: id be chattering your ear off about fureaking nostalgia  turntechGodhead [TG]: the base is too quiet  
turntechGodhead [TG]: there were twelve of us locked up in one of these you know??  
turntechGodhead [TG]: us being the trolls i know i keep mixing refurential purronouns but hey got two lives crammed into my thinkpan  
turntechGodhead [TG]: it was never quiet with karkitty stomping around or terezi getting all up in peoples business or eridan loudly black-flirting with pawsitively everyone  
turntechGodhead [TG]: a girl had to escape to the lower levels if she wanted to work on her shipping wall in peace  
turntechGodhead [TG]: but it was kinda nice you know??  
turntechGodhead [TG]: i liked just kinda prowling around the edges and watching people and how they interacted it just kinda let me build these whole storylines in my head of will they wont they and what would happen if they did  
turntechGodhead [TG]: playing sgrub was honestly one of the best fangs to happen to me beclaws it let me m33t all these diffurent peopawl in purrson   
turntechGodhead [TG]: yeah sure id met most of them online and like there were a few of us whod get down to totes srs rp but like  
turntechGodhead [TG]: id kinda resigned myself to my remote hive and hadnt really wanted to think about the future  
turntechGodhead [TG]: like equius was hella smart and totally a blueblood so hed be snapped up into some research and development division somewhere out in space  
turntechGodhead [TG]: and i  
turntechGodhead [TG]: shit i dont even know  
turntechGodhead [TG]: all i was good at was being a muddled oliveblood and hunting and who knows where id end up except not with him  
turntechGodhead [TG]: and like maybe we died but at least we got to experience what being together meant even if it was just a few weeks  
turntechGodhead [TG]: ignore that please  
turntechGodhead [TG]: its harder to distance myself from this than i thought  
turntechGodhead [TG]: all this quiet alone time is making me think about shit  
turntechGodhead [TG]: *davepeta tries to curl into a small furry-feathery ball in this hella uncomfortable chair because they dont have any shit to make a proper pile but fails*  
  
turntechGodhead [TG] ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

timaeusTestified [TT]  is idle! 

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT]    
  
turntechGodhead [TG]: B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i see daves online and home again   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and adding rose??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: thats early   
turntechGodhead [TG]: but at least youre okay!   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i think   
turntechGodhead [TG]: im trying not to read too much beclaws you know   
turntechGodhead [TG]: purrivacy   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and i got told off   
turntechGodhead [TG]: its not my fault i dont have access to another account   
turntechGodhead [TG]: unless you want to let me use yours   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i guess that would work   
turntechGodhead [TG]: eh if i gotta switch i dont wanna share ya f33l me??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: why dont you have pesterchum on your phone??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: wait what year is it??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i forgot apps arent a thing yet   
turntechGodhead [TG]: give me a ping when you get on your computer   
turntechGodhead [TG]: im leaving the window open on the console so dont worry about the notifications   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i really need to get my own chumhandle    
turntechGodhead [TG]: what would i even name it??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: im not really f33ling tg anymore   
turntechGodhead [TG]: or even ac   
turntechGodhead [TG]: turntechCatnip??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: gog that sounds dumb   
turntechGodhead [TG]: shut up   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i know what youre thinking   
turntechGodhead [TG]: youd be pointing out its no better than davepeta   
turntechGodhead [TG]: its totally a false equivalence to even argue that so dont start ok   
turntechGodhead [TG]: arsenicGodhead??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: these dont sound right at all   
turntechGodhead [TG]: maybe i just n33d to broaden my horizons and just pick diffurent litters   
turntechGodhead [TG]: john ruined the whole naming convention when he went eb so who the fuck cares   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i could be anything   
turntechGodhead [TG]: something insane like   
turntechGodhead [TG]: jk   
turntechGodhead [TG]: thatd be hissterical   
turntechGodhead [TG]: makin you constantly think of jokes whenever you see the chumhandle   
turntechGodhead [TG]: but nah thats more johns style   
turntechGodhead [TG]: id either need something cuter or something cooler B3c   
turntechGodhead [TG]: cool like   
turntechGodhead [TG]: a dj B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: oh that one sounds fun   
turntechGodhead [TG]: the only problem is js suck   
turntechGodhead [TG]: its 8 points for a reason   
turntechGodhead [TG]: actually shit this sounds like fun   
turntechGodhead [TG]: breakin out the ol thesaurus   
turntechGodhead [TG]: just like old times   
turntechGodhead [TG]: B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: hey bro   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i know your probably just caught up like   
turntechGodhead [TG]: doing shit around the apartment   
turntechGodhead [TG]: or playing mad snackz   
turntechGodhead [TG]: you know im not sure what else bro did when he wasn’t working on the computer   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i think he liked to sulk on the roof   
turntechGodhead [TG]: but its been a while and   
turntechGodhead [TG]: god i f33l like a clingy boyfriend   
turntechGodhead [TG]: which im not   
turntechGodhead [TG]: tried that whole boyfriend thing it didnt work out just ask jade   
turntechGodhead [TG]: actually dont   
turntechGodhead [TG]: anyway   
turntechGodhead [TG]: now that i know youre home im really tempted to slap you awake   
turntechGodhead [TG]: just a pap   
turntechGodhead [TG]: but then youd probably pass out and get yourself sent to the hospital again   
turntechGodhead [TG]: so nevermind

timaeusTestified [TT]  is no longer idle! 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a strange one. but I kinda like how...isolating it feels. Just an empty chat window.
> 
> Hope you like rambling XD


	30. Dirk > Accept

You just...sag into your computer chair. The weight of flesh and bone drags you down. Here you can’t just conveniently ignore the laws of physics and step off into that odd weightless state if you just happened to get too damn tired of this shit.

Which you are. 

At least you’re home. That’s the one bright spot in this whole fucking ordeal.

You’re surprised to realize you mean it. As the computer whirrs into the boot menu you look out over the living room. 

Smuppets don’t litter every surface. They make a neat pile in the corner. Electronic junk, in various states of disassembly take their places on the other available surfaces, small projects you’d found yourself starting over the course of the week because the act of tinkering was one of your main methods of relaxing. Lil’Cal watches you from the futon, his cold gaze oddly...welcoming.

It’s just a little mark you’re making on this space-that-wasn’t-yours.

You turn back to the screen, unsure if you are willing to unpack those feelings right now. You’re so tired. Emotionally  _ and _ physically, you aren’t sure if its related to the hospitalization or just your existence in some state of constant agitated panic since Roxy surprised you in that tower.

_ “You looked like a rooster.”  _

Dave’s words bubble back to you from the depths of a sterile white and grey room.  You pick at the bandages applying pressure to your head, remembering how it’d looked in the bathroom mirror.  See the tired eyes and the bandage trapped hair, and the odd pallor to your already ghost-white face.

How long did you have to keep this shit on for again? You hadn’t really been paying attention during the instructions while waiting for the doctor to reluctantly sign the damn form. You dredge up the memory, working around the persistent mental lag that makes you want to pry your brain open and find and replace the shorting circuit.

Five days? Replacing them every night after cleaning the wound?

You could probably just pull them off now and be fine but…

It’s so weird having to worry about a fucking scratch. Of course you know about infections and shit, you’d read the notes your Bro left you about field medicine and had your own training accidents growing up, but it’s just yet another thing that hadn’t felt so important after entering the game half a year ago. One that you need to consciously remind yourself of.

The screen blinks to white and black as the computer finishes its boot cycle, drowning the faint reflection in the light cast off by each and every pixel as it simulates the image of a baseball cap, pointed shades, and a password box.

Keys click under your fingers as you mechanically type in the password. You expect Pesterchum to immediately light up the moment the desktop loads, sending a cacophony of orange notifications screaming at your face because if you know Davepeta at all by now they probably kept up an endless stream of running babble while you were indisposed.

Only to find. Nothing. 

Shit that’s right. You hadn’t bothered to install the program yet. It’d been on your list of things to do but--

What was the point when you had no one to pester? 

But your empty list isn’t empty any longer, and you’ve probably got an incorrigible part-troll-part-bird-part-boy blowing up your notifications waiting on you. You don’t bother with the Complete Bullshit that is the aggregator, and just pull up the Yaldabaoth internet browser instead, a week late but finally installing the chat client you’d spent so much of your life on.

Ten minutes after booting up, you’re finally logged in and drowning in more than 120 unread messages from the single friend on your list.

And this right here is why you aren’t just burying yourself in the action of scrubbing the blood out of the carpet from where you’d fallen after hitting your head, or locking yourself in the crawlspace for hours to try and sort through the boxes up there as a means of mechanically dealing with shit. You’d already indulged in a bathroom based panic attack upon returning home, and that would have to be enough. You’d managed to pull yourself together and sit down without falling apart because you can feel Dave’s eyes on your back, and you  _ know _ Davepeta would be doing the exact same thing if they were here too.

Only maybe with a little more invasion of your personal space. Dave was hovering on the edge of your range like a vulture, wary of getting too near but either not trusting you, or not trusting himself to not keep an eye on you, but you’re pretty sure Davepeta would swoop in and land on your shoulder without an even by-your-leave. Going along with the bird metaphor, they’d probably peck you on the head too.

Goddamn it you are  _ tired  _ if you’re picking up their perchance for turning everything into unnecessarily dumb metaphors _. _

Far too tired to go back and read from the beginning of this massive ramble. You just glance over the last handful of lines for now, the bright red-on-white text bleeding together and making your already sore head ache more. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: Your restraint is appreciated. They’ve been so nervous about a relapse that even the slightest of narcoleptic episodes likely would have landed me in the emergency room again. I might actually need to break out next time.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Is there anything in this deluge of notifications I should go back and read immediately?

Minutes slip by, and you begin to wonder if Davepeta had wandered away from the console because you don’t get an immediate ping back as you expected. You scroll back up through the conversation, the endless sea of red font knotting up your insides and throwing you back to that foggy not-waking-not-sleeping state.

You are thinking of a very different person behind that color and it keeps dragging you back into the void of wherever the hell that was. You’re not sure if you’re disturbed or comforted by the idea that there might be the potential for a Brain Ghost  _ Hal _ hanging around in your head. 

Probably a bit of both, if you’re going to be honest with yourself.

Honestly? You’re finding it hard to be surprised by that revelation either. You’d been breaking off pieces without meaning to for as long as you can recall. What’s another one?

The window flashes orange and you scroll back down to the new messages, slotting one after another in a rapid succession of single file lines. 

turntechGodhead [TG]: BRO!!   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and uh no nothing impurrtant back there at all nope!   
turntechGodhead [TG]: just me being bored and caterwauling into the void   
turntechGodhead [TG]: so youre alive and no longer an unwanted part of a balanced diet   
turntechGodhead [TG]: how do you f33l??   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Tired mostly. They said its normal. I’m evidently “in excellent physical health for my age” but that just means my body is even less used to periods of inactivity and is cranky about it.    
timaeusTestified [TT]: I have been neglecting physical conditioning in the recent days, although I think it’s mostly just being back in the body. It feels like I’m being smothered.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: oh yeah! youre an old man now arent you   
turntechGodhead [TG]: bro worked so hard to perfect that lean ninja muscle better not let it go to waste   
timaeusTestified [TT]: The birth certificate says 28.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: old man   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m crushed. Utterly devastated by your sick burn. Whatever shall I do with you picking at the insecurities caused by my sudden advancement in physical development?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I assume you’ve been able to keep yourself occupied while I’ve been gone?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: yeah yeah been screwing with the computers trying to see if i can unlock some of these feathures but no luck so far   
turntechGodhead [TG]: though there has been cruel and unusual torture up in here   
turntechGodhead [TG]: listening to your snoring for hours   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I don’t snore.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: hell yeah you do   
turntechGodhead [TG]: have you ever heard yourself sl33ping?? i think not   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I don’t sleep period.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: At least not normally.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: the whole always awake shit?? yeah you told me   
turntechGodhead [TG]: doesnt mean you wouldnt if you did   
turntechGodhead [TG]: which you are by the way   
turntechGodhead [TG]: its just catnapping bro no shame in catching up on all them comfy sunbeams and window sills you never got the joy to expurrience   
turntechGodhead [TG]: so uh   
turntechGodhead [TG]: figure anything out during your nap?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: A few things.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Do me a favor? Can you see the shards anywhere?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: give me two twitches of a whisker   
turntechGodhead [TG]: no??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: furreaking kittens man   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i cant even find the holes   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i can try to get a better read but that would mean touching shit and you liked that about as much as a cat caught outside in an unfortunate rainshower BP   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’ll grant you permission just this once.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Shit I can feel that from here.

It’s distant but the shiver runs through you, like a spray of mist dusting the back of your neck and sending the ripple shocks through your spine. The body numbs it, but you can feel the trail of claws along something deep inside your chest.

The pressure eases, and it leaves you drawing your knees up into the chair, curling your arms around them and digging your fingers into the fabric of your pants. You hold the position for a few blissfully quiet moments, before you see the flashing notification indicating new lines added to the chat

turntechGodhead [TG]: woah bro its actually harmonizing now!   
turntechGodhead [TG]: no more scr33ching metal!!   
turntechGodhead [TG]: theres actually a sw33t bassline going on i could totally spin some wicked lines to this beat   
turntechGodhead [TG]: what did you do??

Reluctantly, you peel your fingers out of the stiff fabric and hook them around the keyboard, pulling it closer to the edge of the desk. The cord is long enough, and lets you balance it on knees wedged between your chest and the desk edge.

Your fists clench and unclench against the hard plastic, you aren’t sure how to articulate it yourself..

timaeusTestified [TT]: I just...melted down a bunch of complicated shit.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I think I was half drugged at the time so I don’t fuckin’ know.

You don’t really want to go back to that fuzzy, metaphorical shit of a dreamscape. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: Were you serious about the pesterchum?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I could make you an account if you want.    
turntechGodhead [TG]: you uh read that??   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I skimmed. My head hurts too much to read through it all right now.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: shouldnt you be like   
turntechGodhead [TG]: doing something to wake your snoozing self up??   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i managed to find some sort of break room with a hella uncomfy couch to dump you on   
turntechGodhead [TG]: but youre gonna f33l it in the morning   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m probably feeling it right now. Fuck. I’m burnt out from the panic and adrenaline, bro. I need something mundane that doesn’t involve getting poked at by strangers who wouldn’t understand what the fuck happened even if I told them.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Besides we do not need me back in the emergency room again for passing out. I’ll try that shit once Dave isn’t hovering in the hallway pretending I can’t see him.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: aw hes worried about you bro!   
turntechGodhead [TG]: its so sw33t B’3!

You’ve been deliberately refusing to acknowledge him, but this is the second time in the last twenty minutes you’ve spotted that white-blonde hair and shadowed face peeking around the door to the room. You glance down at your phone, face up on the desk, screen long since having gone dark thanks to power saver mode, but you don’t need to wake it up to remember the last message you sent.

_ Let me know if you want to talk, okay? _

Another reason why you’re putting off trying to reach the medium, because you don’t want him to suddenly decide now’s the time only to find you off in lala land trying to establish a stable balance with your gameself. At least the experience just now proved without a doubt that the data is still actively flowing between you and whatever bits of your consciousness remained in your game self. If you can feel Davepeta pawing at your soul in near real time…

The door might have been wedged shut but there’s a crack. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: Did you come up with an acceptable chumhandle or what?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: oh yeah sure   
turntechGodhead [TG]: had plenty of time to purruse thesaurus.com like it was the menu of the most upscale eatery youve ever furreaking s33n   
turntechGodhead [TG]: dataJammer   
turntechGodhead [TG]: 22 points right there not so bad if i do say so myself!   
timaeusTestified [TT]: You know, I’m somewhat disappointed. I expected a pun in there somewhere, or at least something to do with cats.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: thats what makes it the purrfect choice   
turntechGodhead [TG]: subverting the expecatation B3   
turntechGodhead [TG]: plus its thr33 birds in one paw   
turntechGodhead [TG]: fulfill predestined time shit   
turntechGodhead [TG]: live out childhood dreams of being a rad dj   
turntechGodhead [TG]: AND use a cool nickname given to me by my cool broirail BD   
timaeusTestified [TT]: The password is *******   
turntechGodhead [TG]: sw33t give me a moment to set shit up

turntechGodhead [TG] has blocked  timaeusTestified [TT]

You just roll your eyes at the unnecessary theatrics. It’s not like you were planning on messaging back anyway. 

You reach around your precariously placed keyboard and drag the mouse and its pad nearer to the edge of the desk so you can manipulate it freely without leaving your snug position, and navigate the hell that is pesterchum’s UI. Hell or not,  _ anything _ is better than bettybother or whatever garbage Jane tried to convince you to install once. Or Serious Biznasty with it’s stupid character limits.

You’re almost reluctant as you hover over the remove friend option. turntechGodhead is the only entry in your list. The only thing making the stark reminder that everything you’d previously worked for is gone even marginally more tolerable. Logically it’s the smart thing to do. You might need to get Dave’s pesterchum for real in the future. Especially once the game starts. You don’t need the questions the fact that you are  _ already _ on his friends list would raise.

Remove turntechGodhead [TG] from your chumroll?

You hesitate. 

The window flashes orange as another notification appears. Insistent.

dataJammer [DJ]  wants to add you as a friend.

You accept, and without skipping a beat the green and orange text starts scrolling down the screen, helpfully narrating the troublesome tale of Davepeta and the battle against the carapacian chat interface, and web browser, and ‘dude think i can get a bootleg paint workin on this shit?’ It barely slows to let you get a word in edgewise, but that’s alright. 

You’re tired.

You don’t know what the fuck is up with your head.

Or your little brother.

But you’re home. 

You can afford to not think about the future or what you  _ need _ to do for a few hours.

The sun is setting when the light on your phone blinks.

_ Bro.  _

_ Roof? _

You consider it. 

Fuck it. You did offer.

_ Okay. _

_ Give me a minute. _

timaeusTestified [TT]: Dave wants to talk.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’ll be back.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< alas abandoned once again  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< another year or two and i could hit up your smart phone but no no iphones yet no apps no mobile pesterchum B(  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you two play nice ok  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< no strifing  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< use your words not your fists all that jazz

timaeusTestified[TT]  is idle!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dirk just wants a break :(
> 
> Honestly I'm *really* tempted to change Davepeta's text color too, because conversations in mostly all orange kinda hurts my brain XD What do you guys think? They wouldn't be comfortable using dave's bright red (and dirk would likely appreciate them *not* using hal's color) but I could totes see equius's blue or aradia's darker red. Iunno. *waffles* On the one hand, it's nice keeping the colors because it's like a reminder of the past, but at the same time, I've already been doing it wrong the whole time by using nepeta's color instead of jade's soooo...


	31. Dave > Prepare Yourself

It’s a warm night. Not quite to the boiling level of what you’d expect from something like, Hephaestus’ massive, lava-filled bulge, but enough that you can feel the sweat beginning to bead on exposed skin after leaving the dubious level of relief which is the air conditioned apartment. The sunset paints everything in a bloody red-orange, from your strider-light skin to the grey concrete, and you can tell how mind-numbingly  _ red _ everything is despite your dark shades. 

It’s suitably dramatic for this confrontation, that acknowledgement is one of the few things keeping you from throwing up your hands and locking yourself in your room again.

He’s waiting for you. Of course he’s waiting for you. You hadn’t left the hallway until you’d seen him stretch-- _ movements too stiff, too slow, too obvious-- _ and push away from the computer.

Lil’Cal stayed on the futon. His katana stayed on the wall mounting. It was just Bro who made his way to the door and up the stairs to the roof. You’d be foolish to assume he didn’t have something allocated in the strife specibus, or have a potentially weaponized sylladex, but it was just another chink in the rock hard delusion of normality you’d had so violently ripped away from you.

After today--yesterday--this fucking  _ week-- _ has it really only been a week? Almost fucking exactly, the clock offers helpfully. It was sunset when things first went to shit in your kitchen and you’d handed your bro his hat back. It was fucking poetry that you stood out here on this roof, bro’s face lost in a silhouette created by the blood red of the pollution-haze filled sky.

It feels like it’s been for-fucking-ever since then. If it wasn’t for the fact that you could  _ feel  _ every fucking second that passed, you would believe it if someone said it’s been years. 

He’s sitting on the edge of the roof, one knee drawn up to his chest, the other dangling off the edge in a way you  _ wish _ you were cool enough to pull off. You squash that thought down and remember the fucking rooster because he  _ wasn’t _ cool.

“You call me out for a date and then make me wait? That’s rude, Dave.”

It  _ sounds _ like a joke, but he doesn’t even  _ look _ at you. Just hiding behind those cheap shades he got from someone at the hospital because even bro wouldn’t be hard-core enough to stare straight into this eye-searing eldritch horror of a skyline and metal buildings and reflective glass without it.

“Yeah well you’ve been standing me up for a week now I think you can deal with five minutes.” 

You treat it like a joke because it’s your first response. If you let yourself second or third or fourth guess this shit then the ice will come crashing down and fuck that. 

“...is this about training again?” There’s movement, a hand raising as if to run through his hair and then hesitating upon touching gauze, dropping back to the concrete with a sigh. 

“Of course it’s not about the fucking training, Bro. You’re fresh out of the  _ hospital. _ ”

He’s in profile now, the sun’s light slanting along the edge of the shitty, way too small shades he got from the hospital. A streak of burning red glare rand through the depths of black plastic, like a fucking meteor streaking through the darkness of space. Beyond it, you can feel that sunset orange eye regarding you. 

At least he’s paying fucking  _ attention _ to you now.

“...you equipped your sword, dude. It’s a pretty reasonable assumption.”

...you did? Oh. You did. You hadn’t even noticed. 

Habit. It’s just habit. The roof. And Bro. Your fingers tighten around the handle. No. No this feels fucking right. You aren’t even thinking. You blank your mind and  _ move. _

Metal  _ clangs  _ against metal. You can barely process it before you’re plucked out of the air, a sharp, firm pressure on your wrists breaking your grip on the weapon and sending the shitty ninja sword to the fucking concrete pavement where it stays. Discarded. Your eyes sting. Your wrists ache. 

Bro is right up in your face. He didn’t even give you a fucking chance. In the silence there are words lingering in the air, transmitted and translated from the poignant silences you’d once been able to read like an open book. 

_ Well? Talk away, lil’bro. _

“It’s just bullshit.” You begin, hands clenching and unclenching. Trembling. You are not going to fucking cry. You are  _ not. _ You are getting so damn close to just pirouetting off the handle even the mental image isn’t enough to make you laugh anymore. There is so much to unpack. Too fucking much. “There’s so much bull in this shit that its causing a shortage of beef rumps nationwide. It’s a total crisis raising prices around the world, old men crying because they can’t afford their steak without selling off their kidneys--”

You cut yourself off with an inhale, chest expanding with the lungful of burning air and centering yourself. 

“You won’t look at me. It takes a fucking  _ strife _ to get you to look at me. What the fuck did I do wrong that you almost fucking die to get away from me??”

“Dave--”

“I can’t figure it out. Is this shit another lesson? Am I missing some level of irony that goes beyond my childish underdeveloped thinkpan? Are you trying to prove a fucking point here?”

A week ago you wouldn’t have  _ dared _ do this. You expect a surprise C-man punch to the gut. An ironic laugh and an eyeroll behind dark shades for sticking your nose into his goddamn business, and that would be fine. Because then you could let yourself believe he had a handle on shit. That maybe you  _ were _ worrying over nothing, and really it would be better for all involved if you just, you know. Stopped. You could let yourself forget about the feeding tube and the clothespins and the beep beep of the heart monitor that chased you out of that sterile ward and down the hall and into your dreams. 

Silence, broken only by the shuffle of feathers as the crows nesting in the antennae shifted while watching the show unfold below. Bro’s grip on your arm is a vice.

“What the  _ fuck _ made you think that I’d--” There’s something in his voice there rarely  _ ever _ is. It isn’t anger. You know anger. It’s a low, quiet vibration, not this...lost, halfway to panic, “Shit Dave  _ no,  _ I’d never--Fuck.”

Your knees buckle but that vice grip keeps you up. At least until he sinks to the concrete ground with you. You aren’t even trying anymore, tasting salt as the goddamn tears burn at your eyes and your face and run down your face and smudge up your--his glasses--and you do the most uncool thing you’ve ever done and shove your face into his chest but that’s okay because he kind of shoved you there first and you’re just a scrawny four and a half foot child it’s not like you could fight that shit.

“I fucking swear I didn’t do this shit on purpose, and the fact that you  _ think _ I did to teach you a lesson is just another nail in the shitty person coffin. I don’t want to  _ be _ the kind of Bro who would do that to you, intentional or not. Never.” 

You shudder. Shitty? No no, not bro. “Bro, you’re awesome. And strong. A bonafide urban samurai ninja who don’t give no fucks--it’s my fault for being dumb enough to not understand the lesson or make you feel you’d need to do it--”

“Maybe I want to give some fucks. _ ” _

You stiffen.

“You can be strong and still the shitiest person ever. You can be the most powerful fucking god in the entire known universe and still be the biggest asshole that wants to control everything and then destroy everything you can’t fucking control. And guess where the fuck your bro has been on the scale? Maybe not world ending fuckery, but definitely not on the short-list for world’s best guardian. And I want to change that. Okay?”

“Because your friend died.” It’s mumbled into his shirt, but you know he could understand it because the weird awkward half-hug tightens.

“No--shit--That led me here, yes, but it's not because of them. It's because of you. Because  _ you _ deserve better. It may be a lifetime and a universe too late, but fuck bro. Tomorrow will come. Then the next day and the next and we’ll both move forward to our inevitable destinies, marching to the tune of a thousand broken lives finally fucking paying off, I promise. I’m not  _ going anywhere _ .”

“That’s…” You swallow. Your voice dying in your throat. The heat boiling it away. “I--I can live with that.” 

“Good because that’s what you're getting.” Hesitation. “Just, trust me, okay? The shit with the hospital was not in my plans at all, but I won’t let it happen again. Maybe someday I’ll even be able to explain what the hell happened.”

“’m not a kid.” Mumbling. “I could understand.”

He snorts. You can feel the motion reverberating through his chest and into you. “Trust me, I’m aware. But no. There’s too much fucking context and bonkers bullshit you’ll need to experience to fully comprehend it. Give yourself a few years of normalcy before worrying about that shit.”

This might be the uncoolest thing you’ve ever done. Calling your recently hospitalized Bro to the roof. Attacking him. Breaking down in his fucking arms as shit becomes too fucking much and the suspicions and the guilt that’ve been knotted up inside you for what would feel like fucking  _ years _ if you didn’t know better just burst and bleed out all over the roof. You hadn’t meant to do this shit. You’d meant to yell at him for being irresponsible. 

But, he’s not pulling out of the makeshift hug, even as you both just sit awkwardly in the middle of a boiling summer evening on an oven of concrete rooftop. So you...don’t worry about it right now. And if some small voice in the back of your brain whispers the sky should be green and not red-orange...well, that didn’t matter to you, did it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. That happened. Davepeta did say use your words haha.


	32. Dirk ==>

Eventually, you are left alone again.

Eventually.

It took longer than you’d expected. You had  _ no _ idea how to talk to Dave. But you can’t just. Not talk to Dave. That’s one thing you took away from his whole thing. He needs this, this sitting in the middle of the roof in the dying heat of a summer night because you’ve apparently  _ still _ been screwing up this whole guardian thing.

_ “Funny, he said you were avoiding him.” _

You really don’t want to think about Stevens right now. Or that he was right. Even if you didn’t  _ mean _ to avoid him you sure as hell hadn’t been going out of your way to engage with him.

Luckily your little-not-brother knew how to people fucking better than you did because at some point he’d shifted in your now significantly looser half-hug so he could breathe and asked a question you could actually answer.

“What were they like?” A pause, the only sound the rustle of feathers high above you and the din of city noises below, “Your friends.”

So you just…

Talked. 

Haltingly at first. Barely more than a whisper. But you talked.

No last names. No dates. No places. No mention of sburb or the batterwitch or the fucking apocalypse…

But long days and late nights spent talking to people you’d never met, fitting them around your work, learning and laughing together. Growing to love them and envy them…

Yeah...you could talk about that. 

You ended up talking your words out. To the point where anymore just lodged their way in between the lump in your throat and refused to shake free, leading you down the road of almost comfortable silence as you both watched the last dregs of daylight get swept away by an indigo tide, the temperature slowly shifting from sweltering to almost pleasant without the sun to bake the concrete raw.

“You never talked about them before.” 

It isn’t a question. Or an accusation. Just a quiet statement. 

Your words are a jumbled mess but you force them out. “I don’t talk about a lot of things.”

“You really don’t.” You’re surprised to hear the laugh that accompanies the agreement, “I think this is the most I’ve heard you speak  _ ever.  _ You’re stingier than a miser with his last pocketful of change when it comes to vocal communication.”

“Yeah, well. Text is easier.”

“It totally is. But it’s just so fucking weird. I swear I didn’t think you  _ had _ friends until Stevens showed up and started talking about the olden’ days and ‘98 and crap. You never mention  _ anything. _ ”

The mention of Newt throws a very much unwelcome short into your circuit, leaving you shifting uncomfortably. He noticed. Of course he did. He might have moved a little but he still has his small body tucked under a loose arm and up against your side--something you both were being very careful  _ not _ to acknowledge--and such close proximity would make it very hard to miss even your subtle cues.

Dave pulls away abruptly, leaving the spot at your side oddly cold and empty.

“Shit--I--uh--sorry. You don’t have to tell me. I know. It’s none of my business. I just--you know, dumb kid, wasn’t thinking. Of course you had friends. You had a life before i got dropped on your doorstep, and if you don’t want to share its none of my business.”

“It’s fine,” You interrupt him before he can complete the verbal knot he’s barreling towards, “I don’t mind.”

Stunned silence. 

“...you really are dying aren’t you?”

The familiar phrase makes you look up in alarm, but even in the dying light you can see the nervous twitch of a smile on that face. So you just end up stifling a snort of laughter. 

“R-right. Uh. I’m going to go now. Homework to do. Chums to pester. You know how it is.Technically it was supposed to be due yesterday but shit, if they don’t take family emergency for whatever’s been going on then they don’t deserve the title of human being.”

You make a mental note to check the school section of the Legal Shit folder. Or just ask Davepeta how the fuck you’re supposed to handle Dave’s school work. That would be the simplest, most efficient answer, but something in the pit of your gut recoils at the idea. They aren’t just some kind of interactive cheat sheet to all things Dave. They were probably tired of being treated like a walkthrough. “Do I need to do anything special for that?”

“I dunno. It’s not like you ever let me miss a deadline before. I’m sure they emailed one of us about it. I’ll have it for you in the morning. Probably. Fuck, I’m tired.” 

“Language.”

“Oh shut up _. _ I got enough shit about that dealing with Stevens.” You don’t bother to stifle the laugh this time and snicker as he throws the door open and dramatically stomps off down the stairs.

And like that, the moment passes. The balance shifting again allowing you both return to your neutral states. Him in his room, you in...well… you suppose it is yours, isn’t it? 

Perhaps those neutral states are a little different from before now. 

The overhead light glows softly as you push the door open to the actual apartment space, Dave must have flipped it on when he came through. You slide the borrowed shades from your face and hold them loosely in your hand. Without the phantom weight translating over from your gameself you feel almost naked without them, but at the same time they feel  _ wrong. _ Too light and flimsy. The sort of squareish oblong lenses of cheap plastic make your lips curl in the faintest flash of disdain. But...it might have been something you needed to endure in the harsh light of the sunset, but it just reminds you of what you’re missing right now. 

They clatter against the desk’s surface as you let them free, shoving them away from the keyboard and up under the monitor in the same sliding motion that lets you melt back into the computer chair. You’d give your splinter self credit, for all the fact that the apartment maintained only the barest semblance of order, he--you’d splurged on a hell of a comfortable chair. An understandable use of resources given most of your time would probably be spent sitting in it.

Davepeta probably wondered if you’d killed each other by now. It’s not like you’d expected…

You don’t know what you expected really. But it hadn’t been that. You feel rather...okay about it though. Like some part of the strangling awkwardness that existed between you two had thinned. Still there, but once you’d both stopped thinking about Bro and your situation...things had sort of just continued on their own path, rather than you both unconsciously tugging in different directions.

A nudge of the mouse and the computer wakes from its slumber, revealing the still active window beneath.

timaeusTestified [TT]: For your information, no one is dead.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what about maimed  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Very funny. We talked, that’s the long and short of it.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< huh i gotta give shorty credit i probably would have been all  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< *dj lashes out with wicked cool claws hissing a warning to bro ears pinned back and tail fluffed and the whole kitten and caboodle*  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< even without shit bl33ding through theres  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you know what not my monkeys  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< well  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you are i guess  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i claim you as my monkey  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dave can be his own monkey  
timaeusTestified [TT]: You realize that as his legal and familial guardian, Dave is MY monkey. In claiming me for your circus, you are also logically accepting him as your monkey too?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont pick apart my dumb expurressions with logic its not fair  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< so you two good??  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I think so.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Better than they were at least.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< purrfect  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< now whats the plan??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not that you dont look pawsitively purrecious snoozing away  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but i could totally use your ai building technowizard help here  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s not much of a plan per se…  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< purr se  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< my wings are drooping under the weight of all the missed potential  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I think you do more than enough reaching for the both of us when it comes to lame puns.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Anyway, I just logged on to let you know we weren’t dead. I’m going to work on that now.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< *dj huffs and flicks their wings at you totally offended and shit* they arent lame they are the one thing in this cold and catastophically empty wasteland of a world that brings me joy how dare you  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not that its very big i could purrobably fly around it in under an hour  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I promise I’ll captchalogue you a blanket to keep you warm  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< *dj considers this peace offering and deigns to accept it* fine but you better prime me the fluffiest monstrosity ever or all bets are off  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< at least i think thats a thing now  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< shit i know i had the head for time travel but keeping track of an entire society’s technological development throws me the hell off  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im just lucky i kept up with the tech blogs because you know all the cool kids k33p up with technology  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< get an iphone next year  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< trust me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or better yet  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< make your own iphone  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or get in on the app craze  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< become the next steve jobs  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not that you need more millions but hey at least it isnt dirty puppet money  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< did you just walk away from the computer again??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< bro  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m here.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< where the fuck did you go??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im about to rescind my forgiveness here depending on your answer.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If you must know I was googling shit.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: The timeline of this world is slightly different than the one I studied. Betty Crocker bought up Apple and Microsoft and the like before they ever became anything more than a pipe dream.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< damn  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i guess john is justified in his hatred for anything betty crocker huh  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i wonder if she was a seawitch here too  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i uh didnt pay much attention to that  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Hell if I know. The internet says she’s dead and its not like I can dig up her grave.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If Jane were alive I could probably ask.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< look im sorry dude im just playing  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its cool  
timaeusTestified [TT]: No it’s fine. I’ll get you a blanket so fluffy you’ll be drowning in it, just hold onto your horses for a few days while I contact banks n shit. I was looking into it when Roxy stabbed me. 

You give it a little more time. But they don’t respond. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: Davepeta, it’s fine.    
timaeusTestified [TT]: Seriously.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: The fact that you aren’t typing your hands off tells me you’re reading too far into this.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m not okay with it but I’m not going to dance around it either.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Jake and Jane…   
timaeusTestified [TT]: They’re dead.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...you dont know that  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I do.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Just look at Roxy.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: We’ll talk about this later.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m going to log off so I don’t accidentally end up on the floor again.

timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering dataJammer [DJ]

You exhale slowly, letting the clack of keys fade into the corners of the room.

Even if the game pulled something out of its ass and gave you eight players…

They wouldn’t be  _ your _ friends, would they?

You box that, all all other similar thoughts, up tight and store them away in the crawlspace, in that tomb of boxes and red clay faces covered in dust and cobwebs. 

Come on Dirk. Get back on track.

You don’t pay particularly close attention as you ready the room. It’s still rather early for you to go to ‘sleep’ but fuck, you just got out of the hospital. If you aren’t able to act out of character now, then when would you?

At some point over the last couple days it seems Lil’Cal took your spot. Dave probably put him there. You reach down and pick up the puppet, holding the plush body in front of you, staring down at that familiar empty face. The glassy blue eyes. The painted missing tooth.

It looks exactly like your Cal. Like the doll you’d grown up with, and then lost to the fire.

You wonder how this would have lost his Cal. You don’t think you want to ask Davepeta if they knew.

“It’s been a long weird road for all of us, hasn’t it Cal?” 

But he’s just a puppet, so of course he doesn’t answer. You like to think he’d probably laugh at you if he could. 

Holding him under one arm you prepare the bed. You’re a little puzzled because one of the thicker blankets is missing, but don’t think too much of it. It’s a warm night anyway. 

Cal is deposited on top of the speaker in the corner. Your phone is plugged in to the outlet behind the turntables to charge, and set on the corner behind the futon. Shit’s almost dead, but you can’t imagine anyone needing to bother with it tonight.

Soon...you find yourself with nothing left to do but lie down. Clear your mind and deliberately  _ not _ think. 

You’d never had the easiest time sleeping. Even when you were a kid, before derse, you’d needed techniques to quiet your jackrabbit of a brain enough to actually get any rest. Luckily your Bro had left you with a LOT of random ass literature, so you’d found something that worked eventually.

Space. You slowly sink away from the light trickling in from the hallway. You sink away from the faint traffic noises that filter in through the bubble that is your existence.

You’re sinking away from everything. There’s no convenient shard to focus on and slide down this time, shoving you down the path paradox space intended you to go, but instead you stand on the precipice of sharp edges and empty space.

Threads stretch out before you, as you stand in the center of the gordian knot that is the existence of Dirk Strider. One stretches back to heat and the constant hum of the city and the sticky coating on your throat you’d been learning to tolerate. Once strained, but reforged when you’d managed to resync the two fragments of yourself.

Plenty are frayed. Snapped. Rubbed against the sharp edges where bits and pieces of you had broken off and been lost. You reach for one, knowing the door is  _ right there _ you just have to find it and push and then take the step out to grab hold of all of them--

_ “Be careful when you fall asleep, Dirk Strider.”  _

Red cracks glowing in the dark.

The words echoing through the fuzzy memories leave you chilled.

Something reaches out and hooks its claws into your core and  _ yanks _ .

You start, arm trembling as you hold yourself up off the futon. 

Dozens of eyes stare down at you from the darkness. Marionettes hung on the walls, posters, even Lil’Cal in the corner. All adding to the distant sense of  _ terror _ crawling through your skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And ya'll thought we were out of this arc...whups.
> 
> Sorry for missing an update! I got sick over the weekend which put me behind, and instead of pushing something out on Tuesday I just decided to chew on it a little more. I'm glad I did though, otherwise ya'll wouldn't have gotten any of this haha. My original chapter skipped forward a few days. 
> 
> If I ever miss another update feel free to check my tumblr ^^ I'll probably post a status ramble there.


	33. Dirk > One Step at a Time

Cold water pools into your hands and are a shock against your bare face as you lean over the sink, letting the droplets drip down your suddenly clammy skin an an effort to chase away the mounting exhaustion clinging to you like chains of spider silk. 

The rough texture of the towel against your skin briefly captures your distracted attention as you dry your face, going through the motions of a normal morning routine as if you hadn’t just spent all night either attempting to not exist, or staring uneasily at the shadows of the living room. 

You aren’t sure exactly what it is. There’s nothing different. Nothing strange. You’d spent some of your sleepless night going through your Splinterself’s things and had stored away a lot of the shit that didn’t quite click with you. You appreciate the artistry in the various marionettes that had littered the wall, but the blank staring faces in the peekaboo effect caused by the moonlight were obviously prickling at your battle instincts, so they had to go. You only spared Lil’Cal because he’s special, displayed in his now-usual spot on the speaker in the corner of the room, next to the futon though, not the computer. Give him space to chill and all. The change should make you feel  _ more  _ comfortable. Not less. Yet that same unease has been dogging your footsteps even after you settled down to try--and fail--to meditate your way through it. Building, even, especially when it ended with the same mild panic winding its way underneath your skin.

You allow yourself to wince at the dull pulse of discomfort as your fingers press around the healing gash. Still tender. Really, you’re operating mostly on auto as you unwrap the final roll of gauze and bind it, further committing your disgustingly unruly damp hair into a disaster zone you really can’t be bothered to fix right now, no matter how likely it would be to raise a rooster-comparison from the peanut gallery.

And that right there is a net-full of fish you aren’t sure you want to pull up right now, but you know you really don’t have a choice. You take a breath and hang up the towel and go out to face the day because hell life moves on.

Which is a really weird thing to think given you’d been staring at the literal end of the universe barely more than a week ago. This whole thing, standing in the bathroom, psyching yourself up to greet just another day, running through a bulletted list of shit you  _ needed _ to do to set up for the future…

You couldn’t let yourself dwell on whatever the hell happened last night, even as you set a corner of your mind to dissecting what you could remember of the experience, because you couldn’t even tackle that issue again until you make it through the day. So you delegate it to low priority on the task list and more on.

At least it’s a productive first day back at that. You tackle the problem you’d been researching  _ before _ Roxy got the jump on you. Your promise to Davepeta (even if made in jest) lingering in the back of your mind.

Money.

Fact. You have the emergency cash stored in the puppet trunk. You still need money though, and more importantly a way to spend it remotely, which physical cash was not the most effective at. Fact. You have the documentation surrounding  _ dozens _ of active bank accounts located in the Legal Shit folder and in theory far more money than you actually need, but in practicality you don’t have the log-in credentials for those accounts.

You had to make a fucking spreadsheet for this shit, that’s how convoluted it was.

Most of the statements had banks which had websites which offered support numbers, which is far, far more preferable than physically showing up in person. Especially since any identification (aside from what’s in the legal shit file) was lost in whatever fucking limbo ate all his bank cards.

...actually, maybe it  _ was _ lost in limbo. You can’t imagine  _ any  _ point in time when you’d had an entirely empty sylladex, but the shit you’d picked up in your groove rows had been accumulated during your cleaning attempts. There’d been nothing there to start with, you just hadn’t found it particularly notable since you knew all  _ your _ shit was still with your original body in the medium.

Well shit. That makes you wonder what else had been in his sylladex and was now lost to the aether of universe rending bullshit. At least he’d kept the fucking apartment keys and phone on his desk and not in the sylladex or you probably would have been screwed. You add replacement identification to your growing document of “shit to do” and bite the bullet and pick up the phone.

There’s a text sitting innocently on your phone. That you’ve been ignoring. The contact previously known as Agent. That you quitely relabeled _Newt Stevens_.

_ Hey are you feeling better?? _

You keep ignoring it. You manage to bullshit your way through customer support with the bank by piecing together enough details from your Legal Shit folder to prove that yes, you are indeed Dirk Strider, age 28, resident of who the hell knows and guardian to one Dave Strider. The net result of this plethora of technically-truths, and the not-lie that you’ve locked yourself out of the online banking portal attached to (one of) your splinterself’s accounts… 

Davepeta had been no help  _ at all  _ throughout the whole ordeal. Just laughed as you grumbled in orange text about wishing you could just hack them all and be done with it, helpfully pointing out that you’d better not get caught if you did or you’d be  _ wearing _ orange in a jail cell.

The mere thought of that was insulting. You might not be Roxy, but you’d played peekaboo with the advanced network of an intergalactic alien fish even before you’d had an AI of your own to do your dirty work. You weren’t a slouch. 

H--he would have wiped the floor with them.

Glowing red cracks in the world. If you reached through them would you be able to drag him through?

You shake the thought free. It was useless. He was gone. It was just your goddamn jackrabbit of a mind making up shit because apparently not having a world-ending battle upcoming, or  _ two _ bodies to command didn’t use up enough resources to stop it from cannibalizing itself.

Besides. The hacking idea wasn’t off the table. You had to brush up on “modern day” network structures and programming languages but…

Well you’d wanted to do that for other reasons. 

The day starts to die as you run into Dave for the first time since last night. You must be on the same schedule because he intrudes on your domain as you’re standing in the kitchen, cracking open a can of black beans just like you would have in the old days. You acknowledge him with a slight incline of your head like you  _ weren’t  _ tracking his every move out of the corner of your peripheral vision as soon as you noticed he was there, which is actually quite difficult to do without a set of shades but you think you manage it. 

You’d found a new home for the ones from the hospital. Cal looked quite fetching in the square-ish lenses-- _ thatblockedthoseglassyblankeyes-- _ really, considering the signature Strider Look, you’re surprised this hasn’t happened before.

“Bro. I’ve been meaning to ask you.” You more obviously turn your attention towards the small voice as the boy hovered at the edge of your range, old habits dying hard apparently, “Why the  _ fuck _ did you buy so many  _ beans??” _

You look at him. At the deadly serious nature of the inquiry. And then down at the open can, then back at him.

Then shrug. 

“It’s hella weird bro! It’s not like, fuck if I know,  _ baked beans. _ OR beans and weiners. Or like 3200 bean soup. It’s  _ just beans!” _

“I like beans.” You’re definitely amused now. Dave was slowly unraveling. Losing that cool demeanor in favor of complete bewilderment. 

“Since when do you like beans?!? Is this your deep dark secret you can’t talk about?? You’re some sort of convert to some new legume-centric religion whose creation myth tells of the end of the world via giant cans of juiced up fake protein raining from the sky?? From within shall come our new carapaced overlords?”

Another shrug, although you’re fairly certain you’ve completely failed at keeping the amusement off your face. “They are healthy.”

_ “HEALTHY??  _ You bought this shit before you were in the hospital I can’t even blame it on that can I? Fuck.”

“Language.”

“ _ Shut up!” _

You don’t quite smirk, but you do look him square in the eye and appreciate his expression as you take an exaggerated bite from the spoon and then wish you had the right shades because you would have appreciated a screencap of that. “Want to try some?”

“Just drink your gogdang crazy-juice yourself.” He ends up grabbing a thing of nuts in protest, grumbling something about “ordering fucking chinese food next time.”

When the moon rises and the lights go out...well then it’s time to stop ignoring the dread seeping into your brain and face the prospect of meditating again. 

You don’t even make it to the center of yourself, that weird nexus of threads and sharp edges, even without the eyes of the marionettes to draw you, it’s just this lingering malaise of  _ dread. _ Shadows. Shadows on the walls and the ceilings and the moon filtering through the window and spilling itself like a cascade over the desk. 

Blue light from the monitor lights your way as too-big hands struggle to type.

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering  dataJammer [DJ]

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< fur real  
timaeusTestified [TT] Yes, for real.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< damn it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< how hard is it to fall asl33p  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< if i had a comfy as shit pile of furs or blankets right now id be outta here off to dreamland or whatever land of catnip and rainbows we end up in  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< better than sitting here staring at your lazy ass  
timaeusTestified [TT] I told you I don’t need babysitting.   
dataJammer  [DJ]: hisstory claims otherwise  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< time for plan b??  
timaeusTestified [TT] ...yes. Time for plan B. Give me five minutes.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont worry ill be gentle as a kitten tap <3  
timaeusTestified [TT]: That would defeat the purpose of plan B.

dataJammer [DJ] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

Counting down the seconds in your head you push yourself away from the computer. Plan B was hella simple. The timer was really just so you could get somewhere safe in case you pass out again.

You barely make it to the futon, and sit down and anchor yourself before you’re hit by  _ it. _

It’s not a physical blow. You barely move, but it sends you  _ shivering _ to your very core. It throws off your balance, your vision,  _ everything,  _ the world swimming in a mass of blue and black and red seeping through the cracks in the world. Reality layers upon itself, your eyes are leaden and heavy and you feel like you haven’t moved in days and there’s a deep pain throbbing through your head and you think you can hear some weird noise at the edge of everything--

And you’re yanked  _ back.  _ Like a rubber band being snapped and sending you crashing back into physicality so hard the world is nothing more than a tumble of motion and impact and a deep pounding ache as something hard and sharp bangs into your flailing arm. Something  _ else,  _ luckily fairly soft, but still heavy enough to have  _ volume _ lands with a thump on your back, rolling off when you twitch to join you silently groaning on the floor.

_ Fuck. _

You open your eyes to a bruising arm from where you’d smashed it into the speaker, a deep set  _ fire _ in your fucking spine from roll--not even rolling, fucking  _ falling _ off the futon, and Lil’Cal’s fired clay face lying beside you, borrowed sunglasses askew and watching you judgingly.

You really feel like he’d be laughing at you right now. In fact you could almost hear it.

“Just...Shut up, man.”

You need to talk to Davepeta. They have to be worried as shit.

But you just throw your non-bruised as fuck arm over your face and just lie there until you stop hurting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp time for Plan C *looks at smudged hand* What was plan B you ask? Well...
> 
> Edit: 2/13/19 Added exposition to make things flow better!


	34. Davepeta > Comfort

Time moves on. You can’t hear it like you used to, but still, in some hyper-vigilant corner of your mind, you can  _ feel _ it. You can feel as the minutes waiting for Bro to respond shift to tens to thirties to almost a gogdamn hour before you finally see the text flashing in your notifications. 

But that’s fine it wasn’t like you were on pins and needles waiting for him because you had your lap full. Quite literally.

You’d gotten used to the peaceful kitten-in-a-sunbeam Dirk whenever you gave up tinkering with the consoles and popped down here to keep an eye on him. This was like night and day and you did not like it one little bit. He tossed and turned and struggled until you’d almost needed to hold him down to stop thrashing. But he still didn’t wake up. He  _ fought. _ Clawing tooth and nail with pitiful human nubs against something you couldn’t see.

_ Just stop it. Please. I’m here. I’ve got you. _

You want to tell him but you can’t. It gets caught in your throat as some sort of pitiful, mournful chirp. All meaning lost in untranslatable waveforms.

So you do the only thing you can do. You grab him and pull him close. Cocooning him in a cascade of glossy green-black feathers and warmth and security. He struggles. Of course he fucking struggles. It eases as time passes, and soon he’s merely shivering instead of flipping the fuck out, to the point where you don’t have to restrain the dude to keep him from throwing himself off the couch and onto the floor, although there’s a nasty bruise purpling on his arm you don’t remember noticing but fuck maybe you’d just grabbed too tight you don’t know.. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t that fucking hard to wake someone up as long as one of you was already aware. You’d literally just beaned your Rose in the head with one of her yarn balls (something she’d taken revenge for in the new timeline, much to Davesprite’s amusement) and voila, rise and shine sleeping beauty, sleepy blinks and adorable bedhead and all.

You’d hoped Dirk would have answers. But he doesn’t. Didn’t. Doesn’t even  _ know _ he’s dreaming. Doesn’t know about the violent twitches and pinched expression that echoes the frustration you can  _ read _ in his text.

He’s here. He’s so fucking close. And yet completely out of reach.

Mussed hair is a stark contrast against your magenta colored pants. His shades join your communicator on the back of the couch so they aren’t thrown or crushed on accident. 

You hate this. 

Okay maybe hate is too much. You  _ really dislike this. _ And not because you’re essentially being used as a pillow. You hate that he’s here and yet he’s  _ not. _ That you can stare down into the fading red marks on his face where you’d lightly smacked him, literally  _ in your lap _ and yet you feel like you’re an entire universe away.

You hate that you feel guilty for being so fucking disappointed, and not for the same reasons Bro is.

You vibrate uneasily, running your claws through the sweat damp white-blond of his hair, the picking and zipping motions usually reserved for feathers buried in the bird-part of your brain giving you something to do as you just tried to do  _ something _ . He seemed to respond to it. The pinched expression easing just a fraction. The fits of motion and violent twitches easing. 

A nightmare. 

A fucking nightmare, and Bro wasn’t even  _ asleep. _

You wonder if this was what happened when Rose wrote her insane MEOW bullshit in her sleep. A nightmare within a nightmare where you can’t even wake up. 

If he was in his Dream Room would he be writing on the walls? Was there something lodged in his subconscious that you needed to pull the fuck out like john’s clown denial bullshit? He was perfectly fine before this shit. What happened??

Should you even be soothing him? Shouldn’t you be trying to agitate him more so he wakes the fuck up? Should you smack him again? Harder this time?

You almost miss the flashing notification because you are focusing on grooming your Bro’s too-fine hair. 

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering dataJammer [DJ]

timaeusTestified [TT]: Fuck this. I can’t even close my eyes. Is it reacting to me or am I reacting to it?   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< which would you rather be the cluckbeast or its egg??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< maybe your dreamself is reacting to the panic attack  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< maybe you are reacting to it having a nightmare  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< does it matter??  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It might. This didn’t happen before did it?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont know you were cat-atonic when you were first sent back and then i wasnt with you that first night remewmber??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it s33med all catnaps and sunbeams when i checked in during the day  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...when you punched me.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< details  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It isn’t just details it’s a betrayal, Davepeta.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it aint a betrayal when future you asks for it B33

The gentle teasing is a reflex at this point, the screen between you two blocking the words you really want to say.  _ Have _ been wanting to say since you’d been left alone-but-not-alone here in the veil.

One set slips out.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< are you ok??

Tick. Tock. The entirely imagined echoing in your head makes the seconds last forever. The prince nearly curled into your side twitches violently. You return one hand to the preening, mindful to keep the sharp points to a rhythmic kneading. The desire to purr aches violently in your chest, just the way your lusus used to when you were a wriggler. Frightened or scared or just so goddamn lonely and you’d clung to his fur and buried yourself in it and surrounded yourself with that vibration and you so want to do that for Dirk but it gets caught in your nonfunctioning throat and you  _ can’t. _

timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m fine.

Liar. 

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< be hpnesy  
timaeusTestified [TT]: …  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Okay. Fine.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I can’t do anything about the fucked up state of the world. I can’t do anything about my friends. I’m saddled with a life and responsibilities I’m not qualified to deal with. But, I can deal with that. I can plan. I can act. I might screw something up but at least it’s something I can fucking learn from and control. I know the game is coming. I can survive shit until then. Maybe even make something better, fuck if I know.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: But the shit I’ve been dealing with for the last few days? Ever since Roxy killed me I’m just bumbling through fucking events like a newborn fucking child. Hell, I was probably more capable as a child. One feral infant against the merciless ocean only kept alive by my own innate awesomeness and the buoyancy of puppet flesh.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I don’t give a shit about being in control of events. I gave up the delusions of some grand puppetmaster scheme months ago when it became apparent that road was a one-way trip to Nietzshe’s abyss, courtesy of my fucking autoresponder. But I can’t stand not being in control of myself. I can’t stand being jerked around like I’m on a set of strings I can barely see. This is something I should be able to do. I have been able to do. I can fucking feel it at my fingertips but I just can’t manage it and it’s infuriating.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m just so tired and I’m apparently incapable of turning my brain off for two seconds without having some sort of panic attack. At this rate the closest thing I’ll get to sleep will be me passing the hell out due to sleep deprivation and I don’t even want to know how Dave’s going to take that shit.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Fuck why the hell am I talking about this?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I shouldn’t be talking about this.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dirk

You hesitate. But he hasn’t closed the window yet. And the words youve been swallowing for days burn like bile in your throat. Especially after...that. Wrapped all up within the bubble wrap of distant concern and the hope that shit just works so you both can move on. 

It’s real swell talking about distance when the dude has his head in your fucking lap. But the Dirk you can touch can’t hear what you can’t speak, and the one who could read it you’ve just…

Fuck it.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< srry  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i shuoldhve b22n able to srop roxt  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Stop.

You freeze in the middle of tapping out another typo filled sentence, but the floodgates have been fucking breached and shit continues to play in your head like a scratched up record regardless of the fact that you aren’t tapping away at the keys. 

If you’d just been stronger. If you’d realized what the fuck she was going to do. You could have…

timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s you so I know there’s more than that so just. Stop.

Fuck. You don’t know. You really don’t know. Warned him or something. Chased him out of the tower before she got there. 

If she hadn’t killed him none of this shit would have happened. And he wouldn’t have needed to rebuild the bridge or get stressed the hell out to the point where he can’t even fucking sleep.

timaeusTestified [TT]: You know how weak you were back then. If you’d tried anything she would have killed you. You didn’t have an extra life. I did. This is clearly the best outcome of the situation or Dave wouldn’t have bothered time-traveling to try and punch my lights out.    


You want to bristle at him. You want to huff and fluff out your wings and say you weren’t weak. That you would have been fine. That you could have figured something out.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Davepeta?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I won’t deny I’m frustrated. I’m stressed. I’m soon to be bordering on major sleep deprivation given I can’t even fucking meditate now. I loathe almost everything about how that shit ended except one thing.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: That one thing is saving your feathered ass.

You just stare. Down at the orange text blazing on the white screen. Tthat was so damn awkward. And painful. And it makes a knot form in your acid tract because it reads as so fucking sincere it makes you want to cry. You can’t do anything about the former, but you push your shades up into your hair and rub furiously at the offending ocular organs. They just stung. That’s all. 

Just.

Fuck him.

He’s a warmth at your side. Tucked up under your outspread wing like a baby cluckbeast. Yet at the same time he’s so far away from you and you can never cross that distance and that just  _ hurts _ .

Remnant gander fluid smears against the keys as you type.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you now owe me 2 fluffy blankets  
timaeusTestified [TT]: The first has already been ordered. Couldn’t you just alchemise it twice?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< a proper pile is made of a multitude of objects of diffuring softnesses and textures so no i cant  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im upping my demand to five now of varying levels of fluff  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Three, the captchalog code for apple juice, and a cracked copy of mspaint.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< damn you drive a hard bargain bro you had me at the goddamn juice  


If the gander fluid, which is definitely _not_ tears, is pooling at the corner of a bittersweet smile, it’s not like anyone here could see it.

Time moves on.

You just have to keep up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a lot that can be hidden behind a screen now, isn't there? Especially when you need to be strong for someone else.
> 
> ...Not going to lie, this is one of those scenes going onto my "list of shit I want to illustrate eventually"


	35. Dirk > Fall

It’s days in the future, and you don’t know how many.

“Yo.”

You look up from the computer. 

Two…?

It takes you far longer than it should, but your vision finally focuses, the two half-melded copies of Dave settling into one shade-covered boy holding something in his hands. 

Holding it out.

It’s a stack. A three inch tall stack of papers and envelopes and magazines and who the fuck knows what else..

“I think the mail dude is getting pissed at you again, Bro. The box was  _ stuffed _ . Ya gotta clean out that shit or he’s just gonna dump it in the middle of the lobby again and show the world your private imported stash of puppet nudes. Scandalize the old lady who lives downstairs again and you’ll never hear the end of it.” The paper texture on the bottom envelope smooth and cool against your fingertips, “What about my homework? Did you even mail that?”

“I did.” You think. How long has it been? Two? Three? Days. Shit things are getting hard to keep track of. You’re fairly sure you did mail the homework though. Dropped it into the outgoing mail slot, stamp and all. You remembered because you remember wondering if you’d missed something. Or if you did it wrong. Not that you would have known if you had. “That morning.”

“Okay then the next assignment is probably coming Monday. I’ll need to look out for that.”

He leaves the stack in your hands and absconds. 

Not  _ really _ absconding. It’s a rolling walk that shows no signs of urgency, but you could still feel the lingering tension as he retreated to the hallway. It takes you a moment too long to process a “Thank You--” because he’s gone before the electrons transmit the signal from your brain to your mouth so it sounds to an empty room and you sigh. 

The world stutters. There’s a sharp crack of palms against skin and the sudden, but brief, flare of stinging pain jolts your mind awake. At least a little bit.

Keep yourself together.

Keep it together.

You just want to pass out, but even that’s not a solution. You’d never work off three, four? Days of sleep debt in a single session of totally unrestful passed the fuck out sleep.

Maybe Davepeta was right.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you know it might be worth getting some sl33ping meds  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< just for right now  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you can’t k33p this up

It’s ironic, how desperate you all were to wake up. And now you’re trying to figure out how to go the fuck to sleep. 

You hate not being in control.

Stutters. 

The stack of paper slips from nerveless fingers as they spasm.

_ Shit! _

Heavier items such as the GameBro magazine slump into your lap, but the lighter envelopes flutter around the room in a small localized storm. 

The world tilts as you slide out of the chair to your knees, working on gathering each of the wayward pages one by one, taking the time to glance over the preprinted senders on most of them. The words stick in your brain for mere moments before sliding through the tired haze like butter left out to melt on the oven that you’ve come to recognize as the Houston summer. Most of them look fairly mass produced. Junk mail. Maybe some bills. Fuck if you know. You’ll need to go over it again and write shit down to get it to stick at this rate.

You’ve cleared up half the page stack of the smooth white mass-printed window envelopes, straining to reach under the desk when your hand settles on something that feels distinctly  _ different _ .

The paper felt heavier. Textured. It’s clearly an envelope, thin and with a stiff core. You can’t quite reach it from where it’d wedged itself beside the computer tower, squinting your eyes against the heated air being shunted out of the machine’s fan.

Why do you even bother? 

It could probably wait. 

Nothing really hinges on you getting this 

_ Single _

_ Fucking _

_ Envelope _

But no. 

You’re  _ going _ to get this shit now.

Even if it means stirring up a few stray dustbunnies and unearthing some more fucking  _ smuppets _ that had fallen behind the desk as you full on move the tower.

You don’t give up until you have that fucking piece of shit in hand. Staring down in dazed confusion at the pastel textured object. It’s different. No window for your address, no name in the return address. Just neat, inked handwritten characters on a sealed envelope, slightly heavier than some, lighter than others.

Definitely not something worth the trouble you had to go through to get the fucking thing.

That didn’t matter though because you  _ got it. _ The satisfaction coursing through your fog-shrouded mind was almost like a drug, wringing dregs of energy from the action and pushing you forward. To finish the job.

Into the pile it goes and you continue picking shit up. 

When you finish it’s been well over twenty minutes, but you place the reassembled stack of mail like a trophy on the desk before you. It takes a moment but you soon register that leaving things as they are is just  _ begging _ for history to repeat so you relocate it to the speaker system near the window. You aren’t  _ completely  _ off the rails yet to repeat that blunder.

You should look through that shit. But if the last while taught you anything it’s a waste of energy. The battery desperately needs recharging but the damn cord just won’t work.

The chat window waits where you left it. The green text is a blurred splotch within pesterchum’s bright orange frame. You read over the last few lines. Trying to find the thread in the conversation to follow it but it slips through your fingers as you do so. 

It isn’t even noon yet. Fuck. The futility of the situation crushes you. The pile of goddamn letters mocking you in the harsh light of the sun. Maybe you’d managed to do  _ something _ but you couldn’t even be able to make use of it in your current state. 

It’s an oroborus, winding in constant self destructive circles around you. You’re awake because you can’t sleep. Because you can’t sleep your current status is severely impaired. You can’t even pass the time without losing yourself. You stare at your open tabs in Yadabaoth, trying, and failing to even remember what you were in the middle of doing--research?? Studying computer languages?? Shopping??--before Dave brought those letters into your life.

The sun beats down on you through the wide open window, warming your skin. It makes you think of long lazy days and the sound of the sea and salt on the wind. When you’d go to the roof and just let your brain slow down in the summer heat and endless sky. Slow, but never stop.

The world stutters. 

_ you can’t k33p this up _

Your phone is in your hand. A contact open you’d deliberately been avoiding.

_ Hey. I need a favor.  _

You send it before you think about it. And then hesitate.

You can’t ask Dave. 

Stevens might ask you annoying questions but he might  _ actually _ be capable of buying something powerful enough to knock you out.  _ Just enough  _ to reset the ticking time bomb that is four, maybe even five days of sleep deprivation. If you asked Davepeta could probably tell you. You couldn’t say for sure after the day after the nightmare. Shit just sort of. Started to blurr together between useless meditation attempts and hashing out plan after plan that just fail to thrive, setting up shit while you still had the mental capacity to do so.

You’ve always been good at functioning on little sleep, even before you could just abandon your body to deal with that on its own. But you’d  _ never _ gone this long before. And eventually even you reach your limit.

Eventually you’d pass out, and it’s only that lurking dread and rising panic you can’t explain that keeps pulling you back from the brink every time the world stutters in one of those microblackouts.

_ Stutter. _

Just like that.

Fine. Whatever. You throw out the follow up request and then toss your phone back onto the desk. Shaking hands typing out a message to Davepeta.

timeausTestified [TT]: I’m going to the roof. Need to get out of this fucking room.

You don’t wait for Davepeta to respond. Just close the window. Leaving the hot beam of sun and moving into the waves of heat roiling off the concrete.

Noon is the hottest part of the day, and it’s not quite there yet. But you find a shaded nook near the humming rooftop AC unit where you can wedge yourself. The air is hot, but dry. Nothing like the moisture filled air fresh off the sea. But if you lean back against that vibrating metal and listen to the wind and the crow of the gulls( _ theyaretoodarktobegulls)  _ you can almost pretend.

You don’t know how long you sit there, staring up into the cloud filled blue sky, sluggish thoughts still attempting to whirl through your brain. Unconsciously trying to distract you. Keep you away from the yawning abyss you both desperately want to reach but dread going near. You want shit to go back to normal. 

You want to wake up from this nightmare.

Literally. Your lazy as fuck dreamself was just laying there on some hunk of rock out in space in another dimension. You wonder what the hell he’s dreaming about.

The world is filled with red cracks and heat. It sinks into your muscles. Into your body. Into your very soul as everything...slows.

You don’t fall. You just kind of, fade. You could reach out. You’re in that in-between state where you can feel the threads that stretch across existence.

But you don’t. You’re too damn tired.

Sinking into yourself. Into those cracks. Down the path of least resistance.

You wait for that stabbing anxiety. The fear. To tear you away from the brink and back into the fog.

Don’t pick up things if you can’t deal with the consequences, idiot. I warned you.

Red text emerging from the darkness; but there’s no screen.

Too far gone to even properly manifest, I see your self-destructive tendency has stayed intact.

But...Intercepting and rerouting incoming distractions was the core of my initial function. I will do what I can.

The black just closes in around you, tucking you away so deep you might not even be there any longer.

Sleep well.

x-x-x

=>

????

The storm howls. Red and green and snarling winds. But its prey never rises. Never travels the road through the space between the stars that it seized as its own.

A hunter, disappointed. Vengeance, postponed.

For now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skipping ahead a couple days~ :3c
> 
> Davepeta chapter should be next if all goes according to plan. (this next section was actually written severely out of order haha because I just sort of had ideas of what everyone was doing but didn't nail them down into a specific timeline until they started to link up to one another.)
> 
> Thank you for continuing to read <3 Every time I get a notification (whether from a comment, or a kudo) it honestly helps feed the gremlins working on this story. (and smack away the goblins. Goblins are no fun. Gremlins are nice.)
> 
> EDIT: WHUPS. I completely forgot to copy over the teensy lil bit at the end there.


	36. Dave > Answer

You’ve been staring at an empty text box for one hour, 43 minutes and 56, 57,58… no. You glare at your fingers absently tapping the seconds out against the desk, and consciously force the movement to cease, curling the traitorous fingers into a fist and shove it under your elbow. You can’t type like this, but it’s not like you were making any progress on that blog post anyway. 

Putting a stop to the motion does nothing for the pulsing in the back of your mind, but you’re fairly good at ignoring that now. You only notice it when it bleeds out into these annoying ticks and it ruins your presentation, and you know what they say, half of being cool is  _ being cool _ . Even when there’s no one around to see.

Your right hand drags the mouse to the cancel box as you give up on the idea for now, the screen popping open to the homepage of your...crap what blog was this again. A quick check on the url reveals it to be your bullshit blog, which makes sense since you hadn’t had a particular topic in mind. Just figured you should  _ try _ to write something since you’d gotten a couple concerned comments from your regulars. Yeah. You just weren’t in the right zone for this shit 

It’s been a while since you’ve updated, well anything. With everything you’ve had whirling around inside your skull lately it just seemed one of the least important things. Hell it still did. You open up your aggregator tab and click through a couple of your others, unironic music blog--which you can’t update till you finish a track, although maybe you  _ could _ throw a teaser or a status ramble in there…--ironic review blog, a half dozen others you can’t even remember what the gimmick  _ was _ anymore that just don’t…

Seem all that important anymore.

Ugh. 

Maybe you should be mad at bro for killing your inspiration on top of everything else, but you aren’t even sure if that’s it. You’ve been through writer’s block before. It hella sucked, but it wasn’t...this.

It just felt like you had better things to do with your time. Or you  _ should _ have better things to do with your time. Whatever that meant. Throwing, admittedly hilarious, word vomit out into the void for thousands of adoring, faceless, nameless,  _ doomed _ \--

Fuck. It just feels like it doesn’t  _ matter. _

At least you can still find solace in mixing your music, but even your ears get tired of listening to the same section of track over and over again trying to get everything  _ just _ right and you just gotta let it simmer for an hour or a day and go back to it with a cleansed brain to make sure it wasn’t just familiarity talking.

What else IS there for you? You’re waiting on your homework to get here. There’s your chums, but one’s at school and the other...shit you know as soon as you open the window you’ll end up spilling your guts about  _ something _ . If there’s one thing you’ve learned about Rose since you met her it’s that she’s  _ very _ easy for you to talk to. Like John. But unlike with John, it’s not always about the fun or goofy shit. Oh no, she’ll pick and prod until she digs up a festering nerve and then push you to talk about  _ that. _

Which, okay, fine, maybe you’d  _ needed _ that, and the talk with Bro went  _ okay. _ And you probably wouldn’t have left your room that night if not for her prodding… 

Maybe you’ve been able to--mostly--table the  _ bro hates me  _ thoughts but you’re still a little jumpy, and things don’t feel right, and alarms are blaring even if you’ve muted the bastards, but you’ll adjust.

You’ll...adjust.

At least it’s easier to talk to him now, a fact you find yourself appreciating. It takes you a few minutes to hype yourself into heckling him about something as blase as the  _ mail _ but, it’s still...nice.

It makes you feel not  _ quite _ so alone in the apartment. And not in the I-know-you’re-there-waiting-to-ambush-me feeling you’re used to when you step foot outside your room. Come to think of it, you don’t think he’s been in stealth mode at all since...well...the Incident. If you were to go out there  _ right now _ , you don’t  _ have _ to worry about stealth smuppets or goosebumps or…

You don’t have to. So stop. 

It’s nice.

One day you hope you’ll stop needing to tell yourself that.

Flipping back to your bullshit blog, you skim the posts, looking for something, anything, to get you motivated on  _ anything. _ You linger on a post. Half text It was a terrible drawing, illustrating, in your intentionally shitty style, the running gag of the text post and…

An anonymous comment. Fairly recent, in comparison to the post itself. 

_ This is so funny! You should do more of these! :B  _

Your fingers are tapping on the mouse but you hardly notice. 

Maybe you could. 

You reach under the desk and hook your fingers along the edge of the shoebox, letting the light shine in on the crumpled and folded pieces of paper as you pull them out and place them onto the desk.

Doodles. All doodles. In pencil. In pen. Many smudged from careless hands pressing down on the page while you’d worked on another section…

Maybe you didn’t have to  _ write _ something. 

You don’t tuck away the shoebox again, but you do pack up most of the drawings. Instead you nudge it out of center of the desk and pull your keyboard and mouse closer, straightening up in your chair as you pull up the generic paint program on your computer. 

Using the mouse is much harder than the pencil or pen, but fuck it you aren’t aiming for  _ good _ anyway. It’ll look better than using your camera to take a picture and having to deal with the shadow, and the way the picture makes the paper look all gross and grey. You’d have to import that shit into a photo editor to make it usable and even then it’ll never look half as good as on paper. 

The resulting abomination doesn’t even get the honor of being saved, but something  _ eases _ as you open up another file. And then another. Just one shitty doodle at a time, half of which make no sense but they make you laugh anyway. 

Half a dozen later and you’re getting faster with the mouse. Hand a little bit steadier as you add the finishing touches to the image. It isn’t anything profound, but in your head you’re already composing the text bit to go with it. Some of the nihilism settles in again, but at least not you aren’t doing shit for them. You’d needed this as much as that one commenter did when they left that message on your post.

Saved. Uploaded. And then you get rolling, shaking the words out of your brain like a misting of wet dew splattering against the ground when a particularly heavy bird lands on the branch and knocks it free and shits on it--

BZZZZZZZZZT.

\--”the fuck?”

Your head snaps toward the hallway as the grating buzz sounds again. Someone’s here? You didn’t order shit. It must be for Bro. He’ll get it. You put your head down and try to get back into the  _ zone _ but--

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT.

You ignore it for another five minutes, but fuck, you can’t concentrate. Especially when whoever it is just  _ lays  _ into it for a full on minute.

“FINE. I’m coming already hold your pint-sized horses. BRO--” It crosses your mind that maybe Bro went and locked himself out. Which would be hilarious if it wasn’t just another uncharacteristic thing to pile on top of everything else threatening to drive you insane, which you are  _ adjusting to, thank you very much _ , “--why aren’t you answering your own--” You open the door with a huff.

It isn’t Bro.

You almost, but not quite lose the thread of your frustration, “...what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Hello to you too, Dave.” Stevens responds with a suffering sigh, “Apologies for the doorbell. I texted Dirk to let me in, but he’s not responding.”

_ Not responding. _

Your mind screeches to a halt.

“His phone probably just died.” That’s your voice. Oh. You’re going on autopilot, “I can’t believe he didn’t hear that fucking buzzer it’s like someone laying on a giganticized kazoo straight into your earhole it’s obnoxious--”

It’s so bizarre letting someone else into your apartment. The last time--well before the last time it never happened. At least not while you were there. Or it was someone you know, even peripherally. Okay that’s not fair. You slept at the dude’s place, even if it was completely involuntarily, you can just admit it already.

Only Bro isn’t in the living room, although his phone is. Left sitting on the desk all lit up with notifications like a christmas display. Which, if you’re being honest, is a HELL of a relief. You’re trying not to think about it but the image of finding Bro on the floor again is lurking in the back of your mind. Especially since you’d have to be fucking dead to miss that buzzer.

“He might be on the roof.” You shrug. You aren’t concerned. You are NOT. “He would sometimes go up there.” To train. 

“I didn’t realize you have roof access from inside your apartment.” Stevens mused as you lead him to the door past the kitchenette, “I thought this led to his room.”

“Nah. The whole room is his room. The dude likes to keep his shit consolidated” He exits into the stairwell that runs up the last flight of stairs. “It sucks ass when the AC unit blows. We used to get maintenance tromping through until bro just started maintaining the damn thing himself to keep them out.”

You don’t have to follow. You don’t. But you do. The tension in your stomach rising with each step. 

It’s the roof. Of course you’re on edge. You don’t have to be here. You can just leave the door unlocked and Stevens can just find bro and talk about whatever they need to talk about--

You step out into the late afternoon sun and you...don’t see him? 

“Dirk? You up here?”

Nothing. Just the wind and the chattering of the crows far above and the hum of the air conditioning unit. 

“Bro??”

It’s not like there’s anywhere to hide. You don’t see anything bigger than a crow perched in the attennae tower, and the roof is like a big flat open space--

Stevens finds him first. Passed out against the humming silver machinery. If there was shade there before, there’s fuck all now, he’s been out here long enough he’s turning a fucking candy red--

“BRO!” For a moment you are back in that moonlight filled room, dried blood on the carpet. Stevens is already next to him. Shaking him. 

And thank  _ fuck _ he stirred. Orange eyes blinking open, fogged and confused but  _ there. _

“You’ve reached Dirk Strider…” He mutters, head lolling as he supported it with an arm, shielding those eyes from the sun, “please leave a message--FUCK that hurts.”

Before you think about it you actually legitimately manage a flash-step and you’re  _ gone. _ Through the door and gasping for air in the cool darkness. You can still hear them, but you can’t see them. Your blood is pounding in your ears and your face too damn warm and why did you come up here in the first place?

_ “How long have you been up here?” _

An inhaled hiss.

_ “Sst...how long’ss it been since I texted you?” _

_ “Five hours.” _

_ “That long then.” _

_ “Long enough to roast yourself, eesh. What a place to nap in. When was the last time you slept?” _

_ “SHIT! ow.” _

_ “Don’t touch it! You’re already going to be dealing with the consequences for days, man. Don’t make it worse…” _

You grit your teeth and turn away and make your way back to your room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I know I said Davepeta but this worked better. Next chapter we'll see how Dirk's feeling after his uh nap.
> 
> On that note however, I'm giving you guys a warning that the next chapter might not be until *next* friday. This weekend and the days surrounding it is...going to be difficult. Family stuff. So, I'm not sure how much time or brain I'm going to have, so I figure it's probably best to avoid stressing over deadlines on top of that.


	37. Dirk > Simmer

The sound of the front door to your apartment has a distinctive, heavy creak, and equally heavy thud as the door settles back into the frame that you don’t remember from the post-apocalyptic version you grew up in. You can hear it all the way from the living room, knifing through whatever you are doing at the time to alert you to Newt’s return.

You’re starting to suspect it was neglected on purpose, given the care put into maintaining literally every other appliance. It does make for a useful early warning system when you aren’t slowly losing your mind to the fog of sleep deprivation.

Which...has cleared. A little. You still feel the sleep debt sitting like a stone in your ledger, but it’s one you can  _ carry _ now. For a little while.

“How’re you feeling?”

You are kind of getting tired of that question.

You just grunt in response, easing the lukewarm, damp cloth away from your angry red arms. The color just seems to be getting brighter, but it would be much, much worse if it wasn’t red  _ at all,  _ so you’ll take your blessings where you can. You’re just lucky Dave’s b--your wardrobe was entirely filled with teeshirts, rather than the tanks you’d found yourself favoring once you moved to the medium. That would have been a hell of a lot more strider real estate for the sun to play merry havoc on, and you think you might have just ended your own misery if you had to deal with burned shoulders on top of all this. 

As it is you only  _ half _ look like a lobster. There’s a line under the edge of your sleeve, and damn the cloth  _ irritates _ the hell out of the skin when it plays peekaboo with the burn line. Not that you’re taking the shirt off with Newt here, but you find yourself wishing for one of your tank tops now that you’re dealing with the aftermath. Maybe you could just rip the sleeves off this damn shirt, just so it stops  _ touching _ .

Even the faint pressure from the  _ towels  _ send painful blossoms of heat and pain shooting through your skin. 

Hah. Maybe that’s why you’re more alert, and it wasn’t the nap at all. Just adrenalin playing merry havoc with your systems because of an assault of ultraviolet light.

_ “ _ You’ve been living here--for almost ten years!--without any aloe  _ or  _ sunscreen in the place. H-How the hell have you survived??”

“Staying inside, normally.” Training had always been before or after the day itself. If it weren’t for you needing to adjust to Dave’s schedule, you’d be a total night owl.“It’s not like I planned to take a nap in the middle of the hottest part of the day.” 

All you’d wanted was twenty minutes of air. 

How had you even  _ slept _ through this shit?? It felt like the sun was lodged under your skin. Even the light pressure of the rags draped over your neck felt like sandpaper, this shit alone should have woken you up long before now.

“Obviously or else you wouldn’t have asked me to pick up sleeping drugs for you--w-which I got. It’s over the counter stuff, anything stronger and you’d need to talk to a doctor and I’m pretty sure you don’t want to do that right now. Though you probably should, insomnia leading to borderline second degree sunburn is kind of bad--ANYWAY, I’m not sure how useful they’ll be with how that sunburn is gonna be screaming at you.”

“It’s almost as if being cooked alive is a particularly painful experience,” You find yourself sniping back, but then wince as the expression feels like it’s pulling on the skin of your face, which is, unsurprisingly, also fucking burnt, “Shit--ow. You didn’t have to do all this.”

“No, I didn’t. But you asked,” Stevens sets the white plastic bags down on the futon beside you, the items inside causing them to crinkle as they shift. He straightens, rubbing a hand across a tired face, “You never ask for  _ anything _ .”

You eye him, wondering, not for the first time…

“Then why do you  _ keep _ offering? _ ”  _ You didn’t actually intend to say that, but fuck it. Everything you’d heard from the man indicates he was kept at arm’s length  _ at best _ . You didn’t even have his  _ name _ in your phone. 

The silence is palpable as your words drop. Not heated at all. Almost monotone. Exhausted. The heat burns under your skin. 

A sigh. Newt snags the computer chair--the only other seat in the room except for your futon--and sinks into it. “Ten years and you’re asking this shit now?”

Fucking history.

Fucking Dirk.

You stay quiet, and that’s apparently the right thing to do, because he just shrugs. “I-if you really want an answer--which is entirely a cynical answer--we do need you to recover so we can get work done. Those puppets won’t fuck themselves.”

It’s meant to be light-hearted, and you have to admit it makes you snort back a laugh, which brings a smile to his dark face.

You shuffle through the bag he’d placed next to you, taking stock of the offerings. You’d never had the benefits of aloe lotions and anti-inflammatory painkillers in your time, but you recognize them, and you hope to the unknowable entities that orchestra the dance of paradox space that they’ll make dealing with this burn much less of a hell than it’d been as a kid.

And then, there it is. The bottle is lead in your hands. It’s a temporary solution unless you want to fight with another doctor for a prescription sleep-aid, but it’s better than nothing. If you take this shit you should be able to function. You’ll be able to think and plan and finally read through that damn pack of letters…

“Thanks.” 

You aren’t looking at him, and instead at one of the posters on your wall. The blocky, abstract faces stare down at you, reminding you terribly of your bots. But that’s good, because it’s just like in the hospital room. It’s easier if you pretend you are talking with them, and not navigating another, unfamiliar human being’s emotional minefield. “I appreciate it. Not just the medication. But that you offered. I’m sure I’ve done shit to deserve it.”

You aren’t looking. So you don’t know how he’s reacting to that. Other than a faint sigh and the creak of plastic as he shifts in your chair.

“It’s got nothing to do with what you’ve done, or haven’t done. Everyone deserves someone to be there when life clocks them a new one, and you never seem to have anyone else.”

He lets out a quiet laugh, and is shaking his head when you finally turn toward him, “It really isn’t that complicated. Sorry, if you were looking for some sort of ulterior motive.”

“If you had one, it’s not like you’d come out and say it.” 

The plastic is cool and smooth in your palm. The sun-kissed redness of the back of your hand aching as it tightens around the bottle of medication. 

Long after he made his excuses and left you to an empty room, with promises made to coordinate a work meeting between you two and--Jane--once you’ve gotten a night or two of goddamn sleep in you, you’re still staring down at it, reading over the label for the umpteenth time. It  _ isn’t _ the same kind of sedatives they’d given you in the hospital. Just antihistimines. But they make you drowsy. Like the heat had. 

As long as you let yourself fall into the cracks, instead of reaching for the threads, it would probably work.

This body screamed for rest. Especially now that you had  _ yet another _ injury it needed to to heal using your already depleted reserves. The sun’s trapped inside your skin, but the fog is clearing for the first time since you woke up in that hospital bed. 

You won’t be able to reach the medium if you want to do this. 

Maybe you shouldn’t.

You found the answer when you stopped looking for hard for it.

You aren’t him--

_ Maybe you should be. _

_ Fuck you too, Hal. _

\--but there’s shit you need to do here. Shit like the meeting about Plush Rumps, and the gnawing worry that built in the pit of your stomach as Newt had briefly mentioned setting it up. You glance to the walls, lacking in their stringed accoutrements, and the bright orange tip of a nose you can see poking out from where you’d stuffed the plethora of smuppets. His ghost is fading even still.

_ I’m going to end up destroying everything he cared about. _

The thought unsettles you, but not enough to make you change your mind. You may only have the barest idea of what you need--want--to focus on. But you do know it does not involve puppet dong.

The small tablets clatter inside the plastic as you relocate--ignoring the hissed breath that escapes as the charred edge of your arm feels like it  _ sticks _ to the back of the futon for the briefest moment--to your unexplicably comfortable chair, snagging the stack of letters off the speaker system. This shit had given you so much trouble earlier, you load up pesterchum as you sort through the mundane actions of going through the goddamn mail. Most of it appears to be junk, although you recognize a few of the names from some receipts in the legal shit folder, which you sit to the side for a second pass later. The window flashes orange out of the corner of your peripheral vision.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< oh good youre alive  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not that i was worried  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dreamy dirk was out like a log so you were purrobably feline fine  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what did you do smash out a new high score in mad snackz or something

The skin on the back of your hand stretches painfully, but the keys click as you respond.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Or something.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I passed out at the full mercy of midday ultraviolet radiation.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Got a couple hours of sleep, but one hell of a sunburn.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i do not envy you one kitty bit  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< especially if you consider your dream-bod wouldve b33n all  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i am a god i laugh in the face of your pathetic attempts to mar the pale af complexion of my left bicep  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Why specifically the left bicep?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< do you prefur the right???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’d prefer not to discuss musculature preferences with an alternate version of my little bro.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but you do have prefurences  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I am putting a pin in this conversation permanently.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont you mean purrmenantly B3c  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Stop.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Being cooped up in that meteor is clearly doing a number on your sanity.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Go harass some consorts. Or raid the other meteors for grist.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Weren’t you complaining about how much it costs to alchemize your juice?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< eh  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< just get me those blankets you purromised and well be good  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...didn’t they already arrive?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dunno did they???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I could have sworn they did.

You remember that ear-splitting sound knifing through the hazy blur.

timaeusTestified [TT]: There was a box...yesterday?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Shit. I’m not sure.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yeah nah brah you n33ded that sl33p even if you chose the worst place pawssible for it  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’ll find it.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its no rush I got mspaint now ive b33n sitting here planning my attack its gonna be so dope  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< gonna go back to my roots and draw a webcomic  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and then you could be a cool broirail and make a blog for me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i cant make any meaningful contributions from here outside of pesterchum this sucks B’<  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< tho i guess thats a good thing otherwise karkitty might have made our lives even more miserable with his unerring quest for kismesisitude and taken that shit to straight up cyberbullying  
timaeusTestified [TT]: That’s the hate-love right?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yeah think arch nemeseseseseseses with benefits  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< that was too many es  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< wait you know about quadrants???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Dude, the batterwitch claimed her invasion was a cultural exchange at first. That shit was recorded everywhere. Of course I do.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...what about <> do you know what that means?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Yeah.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< oh  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< shit  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I don’t mind.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: What are you planning on drawing? SBaHJ?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< nah i aint no ch33tah!!  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i couldnt deprive dave of that monmewmental mawsterpiece  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i got my own ideas now >B3c  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Do I even want to know?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< two words  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< furry  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< romance  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< heavily based on troll romantic tropes because i think i n33d to break out my shipping charts  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...I didn’t want to know.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< itll be great youll s33!!!  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i can even give you a cameow if you want  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< whaddya want your fursona to be??? or like just your favorite animal  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...I'm just going to take what’s left of my sanity and finish going through this mail.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s Horse.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: For the record.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< sw33t

You shake you head, turning the main bulk of attention back on the letters. At least Davepeta was sounding better. Getting them that paint.exe was probably one of your brighter ideas in the days before your brain got trapped in a metaphorical sandstorm and scrubbed raw by the grit. Even if it seems…

Well. You’re debating whether you should be horrified or intrigued by the shit they are clearly getting ready to dive into. 

Mulling on that for a while, you find yourself a quarter of the way through the remaining pile when something familiar brushes against your fingertips. It’s a rectangular--but wider than most of the junk mail--pink, pastel envelope. It--

Rubbing the thicker-than-just-paper edge between your thumb and forefinger. This one was--shit it was the one that fell under your desk wasn’t it? You flip it over, looking for the return address, but finding nothing except a PO box with no name. A box located in...NY. New York?

You slide your finger into the small opening on the edge, breaking the thick, textured paper along the top in a smooth motion. 

It isn’t just a letter inside. It’s a card.

The front is just an image. A flower. Pink with striking purple-black veins running into a dark center. You flip it open.

It’s just a single line. 

_ Thinking of you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whuf. Note to self. AGAIN. Never use italics in pesterlogs. It screws up the formatting.
> 
> The flower is a petunia, if anyone is curious. Not that dirk would know that.


	38. Dave > Pester Rose

turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering  tentacleTherapist [TT]

turntechGodhead [TG]: i thought people were supposed to get better after visiting the hospital   
turntechGodhead [TG]: not worse   
turntechGodhead [TG]: we even did the whole manly bro hug on the roof cry your eyes out emotional climax here   
turntechGodhead [TG]: under a dramatic sunset to boot we literally covered all bases   
turntechGodhead [TG]: every rule of narrative progression dictates were due for some happy go lucky fun shit come on universe do your job   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Technically you would have been better served by a rising sun, the symbolism of a new day dawning, a new chapter in your lives, filled with hope and love and all the tooth rottingly sweet platitudes that fill the minds of hapless miscreants everywhere as they look on the grey doldrums of existence and yearn for something more.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: In truth, I would liken the set-up to that of a tragedy. The misdirection where the author dangles the light of love within reach of the hapless protagonist before tragically ripping it away. Perhaps the illness returns. Perhaps the brothers grow more distant. Perhaps the one’s dark secret is in fact the voice of an old one, whispering in a sweet lull to tempt him ever further into its wretched embrace and away from the world as we know it.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: woah   
turntechGodhead [TG]: well sorry i couldnt pull a sunrise outta my ass to complete your perfect scene its not like i can control time   
turntechGodhead [TG]: the uncomfortable implication that my bro is gonna go mad and sacrifice me to some freaky deathcult was a nice touch i didnt expect that   
turntechGodhead [TG]: you really get into this dont you   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: I might be an avid reader of the gothic horror genre, yes.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: The absurd idea of applying narrative tropes to real life aside, I assume it is not yourself who is looking rather worse for wear with each passing day.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: oh no you got me i was totally the one in the hospital all along   
turntechGodhead [TG]: we found him asleep on the roof baking in the heat of good ol’ asscrack of texas and i almost thought hed pulled another vegetable act on me again   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: While it is natural to be vigilant so soon after such a scare, do recall that neither you nor I are trained medical professionals and therefore not knowledgeable in the potential after effects of such a medical emergency. I’ve done some preliminary research to sate my own curiosity, but the consensus is that healing is a very energy sapping process that requires lengthy periods of rest as well as regular physical conditioning to rebuild while the body heals whatever damage has been caused. You did say he checked out against medical advice, correct?   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: It has only been a few days. I would give it months before worrying too much about it.    
turntechGodhead [TG]: you dont get it rose   
turntechGodhead [TG]: its wrong   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Would you like an honest opinion, or empty platitudes?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i actually just wanted to vent so platitudes are good   
turntechGodhead [TG]: shit   
turntechGodhead [TG]: he didn’t   
turntechGodhead [TG]: how dare he   
turntechGodhead [TG]: this is betrayal   
turntechGodhead [TG]: it is like turning your back on your freedom-fighting bros all for some imaginary electrical impulses pretending to be steak and fine wines   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Your brother?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: no john   
turntechGodhead [TG]: okay he just unblocked me   
turntechGodhead [TG]: can you believe it   
turntechGodhead [TG]: he blocked me even if just for a minute   
turntechGodhead [TG]: how dare he i didnt even do anything   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and now he has the nerve to laugh at me   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: How does that make you feel, Dave?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i do not need a visit from dr sigmund phil rose   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: One might note I am inquiring into the reasonings behind the temporary state of excommunication from your religion of choice. I am leaving your brother for another time, as per your request. Although given the message he just sent me, it appears to be a linked topic.    
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Have you considered converting? My confessional services are always open, no matter the topic. I’ll even do my best to respond in that same earnest fashion and soothing blue text color you’ve grown so fond of.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: can we just go back to i dont know   
turntechGodhead [TG]: dinosaurs or some shit   
turntechGodhead [TG]: that worked well last time   
turntechGodhead [TG]: just something where i dont have to feel like youre sitting there with a martini in hand swirling the crazy juice with a thoughtful motion before picking apart my psyche as if it were a particularly ugly worm under a microscope   
turntechGodhead [TG]: fancy glass and paper umbrella and all   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: I fear I have too many unresolved issues with those particular fancy glasses to see it myself, but I can appreciate the image.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: I have a counter proposal for our topic of discourse as I’m not in the mood to discuss long-dead therapods and ornithiscia.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Do you often dream, Dave?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i guess   
turntechGodhead [TG]: doesnt everyone??   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: What about?   
turntechGodhead [TG]: i dunno shit everyone dreams i guess   
turntechGodhead [TG]: being a hero with a sweet ass cape   
turntechGodhead [TG]: beating off maniacal puppet overlords   
turntechGodhead [TG]: rescuing feathered damsels with cat ears   
turntechGodhead [TG]: still no dragons though   
turntechGodhead [TG]: the usual and nothing whatsoever to be worth psychoanalysing   
turntechGodhead [TG]: this sounds like it could be edging back into the territory of mental vivisection   
turntechGodhead [TG]: put the pen down and step away from the notebook lalonde   
turntechGodhead [TG]: my demons might as well be vampires for how crispy fried they’ve gotten from your truth rays   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: As if I would use something so old fashioned. I do in fact keep my notes in a document on my laptop. It is far easier to keep them organized that way.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]:  I have no intention of dragging your demons out into the light of day. The opposite in fact. I plan to invite my own into the spotlight of scrutiny, as I find myself at a precipice of occurrence that I’m not entirely sure how to parse and it is leaving me…   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Unsettled.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: woah its gotta be bad if you are pulling an unexpected linebreak   
turntechGodhead [TG]: okay fine lets keep these tables turning   
turntechGodhead [TG]: ahem   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and how does that make you feel   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: I just included that information in my opening remarks, and have barely even begun to elucidate the circumstances surrounding those feelings. If you must pull on tired, overused stereotypes in this hypothetical roleplaying scenario at least wait for the proper moment.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: This was a terrible idea. What was I thinking?    
turntechGodhead [TG]: fuck if i know but keep going its my turn to gleefully drag your gothic eldritch-horror loving cultists out of your head   
turntechGodhead [TG]: okay fine you want leading questions heres a leading question   
turntechGodhead [TG]: you asked what i dreamed about well turnabout is fair play   
turntechGodhead [TG]: what do you have prancing around in your thinkpan   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Nothing.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: aw come on rose it isnt fair to clam up on me now   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: No, I mean I dream of _nothing_ , and not in the mistaken instance of waking up without remembering, way.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: A vast expanse of empty nothingness--hollowed out roads that once teemed with possibility. I’m acutely aware of the fact that there _should_ be something here. Some presence. Some voice reaching out to me. Some sort of light to guide the way.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: And yet in the absence of light I cannot even bring myself to classify this feeling as darkness either. I find myself listening for that voice every fiber of my being is insisting should be reaching across the aeons to me, and yet…   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: I wake. With this terrible feeling that something is _missing._ Something inextricable to the very fabric of space and time itself. Something that should be teeming with life and change and motion as we all float on in the dreams of the gods...   
turntechGodhead [TG]: woah   
turntechGodhead [TG]: and this is a regular thing??   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Almost daily.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: I can count two instances where I’ve not felt this gaping loss since the dreams began, and one of those days I neglected sleep due to extenuating circumstances.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: are you sure theres not like   
turntechGodhead [TG]: fuck this is weird   
turntechGodhead [TG]: something missing in your life that might be getting filtered through the horror-loving sponge of your brain into some random hope-sucking void of doom??   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: An expected question, one I’ve considered myself. But nothing I can pin down with any certainty beyond speculation.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Nothing has changed either, what’s more.    
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Perhaps…   
turntechGodhead [TG]: oh did the kitty find a scrap of yarn to follow??   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: My mother has been inordinarily hard to deal with since shortly before the dreams began. I suppose that might be feeding into them, although I wouldn’t expect an increase in an irritating occurrence to be the lead up to the feel that something is particularly  _missing._ __  
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Unless of course it’s a metaphor for my sanity, and the sanctity of my peace and quiet being breeched.    
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Even that is a clumsy, inelegant explanation.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: It is merely getting into the territory of parental based frustrations, is all, a topic neither of us are particularly inclined to discuss at length at the moment.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: yeah no i think were good   
turntechGodhead [TG]: are you good??   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: ...Yes actually.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Despite a lack of anything even remotely close to a resolution, I do feel better.   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: Thank you for playing the part of the metaphorical flora in the corner.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: no prob    
turntechGodhead [TG]: i can do a rad potted plant impression   
turntechGodhead [TG]: photosynthesis mother fucker   
tentacleTherapist [TT]: I think I’m ready for the ornithiscia debate now.   
turntechGodhead [TG]: ok   
turntechGodhead [TG]: deadly oversized chicken or jurassic park 3 2 1 fight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for the continued support <3 Hope you enjoyed the peek at how Rose is feeling... I might do more of these pesterlog only chapters between Dave, Rose, John, and eventually Jade. They work as nice little interludes.


	39. Dirk > Acknowledge the Ghost of the Machine

Things settle into a rhythm. Every morning you pull yourself out of the cracks of the world and back toward the pain-filled waking life. Even with the medicine, and the dubious protection of that dream-state, you never quite make it back to that deep, deathlike sleep that had resulted in the persistent reminder of your stupid decisions burned into your skin. Which, for the most part, you don’t mind. The antihistamines work well enough to tip you into a light doze, which if you’re careful eventually peters into something more restful.

_ Cool numbing darkness, run deep with red cracks. When you sink that far, you are no longer awake at all. _

Normally you peel yourself off the futon and into the chair. Fend off wellness related queries from interested third parties (mainly a certain knight, and occasionally an agent, although noticeably not of dersite employ), and then get to work on your research. Newt’s gifts make the sun trapped under your skin, and your body’s attempts to repair it, more bearable, but even if you let yourself forget, the stretching, and aching as you reach for the mouse, or shift your position, bare arm rubbing up against the edge of your desk--

Fuck. Even beyond the marginal cooling properties of the magic lotion it still hurts.

Fine. Whatever. It’s just a setback. A superficial one. Your fragile human skin will slowly shed the radiated cells and then you’ll be right as fucking rain as long as you never show your face in the sun again. It is banished. Banished from this household, prompting you to even pull down the blinds on the window near your desk, so you aren’t baking as you work. 

You refuse to allow the giant ball of gas an opportunity to press the assault. The remnants are already starting to peel and itch on your arms, fine lines of white standing out from the fading red where movement stretches and stresses against the damaged tissue. At least everything you can find online points toward you being nearer to the end of your torture than the beginning, so you just slather on Newt’s magic lotion and try not to fucking think about it. 

Knees lower from chest to the floor, toes digging into the carpet as you push the chair away from the desk, and stretch, rolling your shoulders to remove the kinks invited in by a long period hunched into yourself. Even once the wheels quit turning, your brain continues the motion, juggling half drawn schematics that have your fingers twitching for a screwdriver and circuitry beneath your hands even though you know you are nowhere  _ near _ even a prototype stage yet. This isn’t some lonely boy tinkering away with his own shit following a tenuous idea. If you are going to tear down the last major reminder of the Dirk that should be here, you’re going to need to do this right. There’s a fucking world of human engineering and manufacturing at your literal fingertips. Use it.

You’ve been here before. With a ghost of an idea rattling in your brain so hard it popped out into your hands, but this time you knew it was possible. You have it all locked up inside your head, lines of code you just needed to translate from the bastard child of alternian and carapacian you’d used growing up, to a language capable of running and compiling on these modern machines, but you’re confident that’s doable. Even without--insider help. 

You push yourself out of the chair, shuffling across the room, the transition from fiber to plastic-like tile shocking to your bare feet. It’s not cold--you’re starting to think you could run the air conditioner on full blast and it would only ever get even slightly below boiling--but it’s a difference in feel that is reminiscent of home, so you aren’t even thrown off by your too-long strides carrying you to the kitchen before your brain registers you’ve crossed the room, too engrossed in continuing to chew on your half-remembered and half-reconstructed theoretical framework.

Dave isn’t here to snark at you as you produce a can from the cupboard and a spoon from the sink, but you find yourself frowning at the dwindling stash in the cupboards. You’d thought you’d grabbed more shit than you could carry but--how long ago had you even bought the goods? A week and a half? Two? You don’t really want to know the answer but you look anyway, letting the much-colder-than-everything else air blast you in the face and tweak the burn lingering on your face. The small stash of juice was  _ gone. _ It felt like Dave religiously grabbed one every night, sometime between 7pm and 8pm, you’ve noticed, and if a pack of 12 was gone, even factoring in no one being home for three days, and maybe stress either increasing or disrupting the routine...the indisputable fact is still yawning before you, laughing at you from empty corners and open spaces.

The idea of venturing out again, even to that small convenience store down the street sparks an overwhelming feeling of dread, especially since you can’t even slip back into the medium right now to ease the anxiety in the quiet darkness of space.

It really isn’t fair. You’d just started getting used to this shit, and now it feels like someone came in and upended all your things and left them lying randomly around for you to trip over and fall flat on your face. Indignant flailing and all.

But you have to. Someone has to. 

Fuck you don’t want to do this. 

The burn lingers in the back of your mind, reminding you that it’s a  _ bad idea _ to go out right now. You still have  _ food _ . If you don’t eat, then you can probably stretch it for another four days, and Dave probably won’t turn his nose up at  _ crazy juice _ as he called it--

Shit, no. That’s so goddamn irresponsible why are you even  _ considering  _ that? 

Besides. Dave was out of juice. 

Can clenched in your first, you head back to your desk while popping the tab and bending the metal without a second thought to access the beans inside. You haven’t been gone long enough for the monitor to sleep, so your gibberish is left in full view as you return to your spot. Coding isn’t your passion, you much preferred the more physical part of tinkering and building shit, but you’d been able to find some sort of zen while working these last couple days, as if tapping back into the you you’d been all those years ago, cooped up in a home that amounts to a floating prison, working to translate the electrical impulses of the human brain into something a computer could read. The first step to your greatest mistake, but also one you need to replicate if you ever want proper shades again, given  _ yours _ are currently stuck in the medium.

Exactly  _ who _ you were back then lingers in the back of your mind. You save the project and tab away, deciding to commit to this makeshift lunch break by bringing up a familiar pesterchum window. Davepeta showed as idle, something that causes a painful smile to inch across your face. It’s apparently harder for them to keep up constant chatter when buckling down to create high art.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Yo.

You bite down on the first serving, chewing thoughtfully as you search for a topic. Your brain keeps circling back around to the one thing you don’t really want to talk about, but you aren’t surprised it won’t go away. Not really.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Did you ever meet ARquiusprite?

You just drop kick the question into the chat client, as if the action would banish the ghost haunting you. It doesn’t. It lingers, seeping into the cracks of the world around you, buried deep in the back of your mind that you normally keep compartmentalized.

Despite time, and stress, and sleep deprivation, you haven’t forgotten  _ everything _ about the one time you actually dreamed.

dataJammer [DJ] is no longer idle! 

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yeah!!  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it wasnt fur long though  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i stopped by on the way to kick english in his behind and he was building shit but it was all-in-one broirail reunion times   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< there were totally unresolved f33lings on both sides but  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< shit neither of us really expected to s33 each other as we were but it was like  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i just knew it was the exact us we n33ded to be  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ya f33l me???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: There is a symmetry to it, I agree. Equius was Nepeta’s <> right?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I don’t recall the exact term. You always use the portmanteau.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< moirail yeah  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the fact that he got tangled up in a version of Bro and I got tangled up with well me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< fucking poetry in motion aint it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< he s33med happy  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and hot damn he had some nice muscles and a pair of sw33t  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Davepeta.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< shades B3  
timaeusTestified [TT]: You broke that line on purpose.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< so  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont you agr33??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what dragged this in anyway??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not that i dont enjoy a saunter down memeowry lane  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you never s33m to want to talk about him  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< AR  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not equius  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i wouldnt expect you to talk about equius  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< though i really think you both would get along  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Did he tell you what he named himself?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< no??   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i kinda just assumed it was ar  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thats what made it into the sprite name  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but youre gonna be a bro and spill the beans before i have a crisis of curiosity right B??  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Lil’Hal.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and you let him get away with that??  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I didn’t have much of a choice to be honest. He had Roxy calling him that already. I don’t think her mom left her those movies to watch and he found the irony amusing.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thats so hilariously dumb owning his skynet flavored ambitions like a gogdamned boss  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i wish i could tell him that  
timaeusTestified [TT]: He probably would have listened to it, coming from you.

The cursor blinks in the text box. It feels like there’s a pressure behind your eyes. You force your aching hands to move as a response pops up, flashing the window white and orange.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< whats that supposed to mean B??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< wait  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you miss him dont you??  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...its complicated.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< complicated like what  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< complicated is such a loaded word you n33d to explain furrther  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m just thinking about before. That’s all. A lot of the shit I’m working on is tied up in what I was doing when he was created.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< right your secret project  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< are you gonna wow the world with a legit skynet before it ends??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you could probably set you and shorty up well for the next few years on the back of advanced artificial intelligence  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< live till the apocalypse in the lap of luxury  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not that bro couldnt have afforded it before  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< he did let me buy john a legit movie prop  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< even if its a terrible movie it still takes dosh  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you arent planning on recreating him are you?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: No.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Hal was created from a snapshot of thirteen year old Dirk. Using the same method, assuming I could get my own brain captchalogued in the same manner, knowing how _I_ feel about him now…  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Shit I wouldn’t put _anyone_ through that. Maybe making him three years ago was a mistake, but at least thirteen year old me didn’t have the baggage of a water-front property on the lake of self-loathing and a fuckton of history with the guy.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Scratch that, the whole goddamn lake IS my property.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hey no fair you arent allowed to monopolize the whole lake  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ive got my own deeds to the place  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< written long before your universe was a twinkle in the frogs giant bulbous eye  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< see right here it says dave s sprite owns that little plot of land over there with the run down dock and the douche canoe tied out front  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i may have moved away but like hell am i giving up ownership  
timaeusTestified [TT]: My choice of location aside, no, my plan does not involve artificial intelligence.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s something you’d rather enjoy, I think. I’ll let you know if it’s even possible without either the game’s rule-breaking logic, or magic idea-based engineering. 

Metal clinks against metal and it draws your attention, the spoon scraping against the bottom of the can. You blink down at it. Empty of its contents. 

You don’t even remember eating, focused as you’d been on the flow of conversation. Of  _ talking  _ about…

This.

Fuck.

An empty can. Just like the empty cupboards. Which you still needed to do something about.

Damn it. You set the metal down on the desk with a clunk. 

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< aw come on bro mew cant just throw somefang out like that and expect me not to wriggle like im in the middle of waiting for a pounce  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im sure mew know the kind  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the cute butt wiggle of anticipation  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< this is torture  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im dying  
timaeusTestified [TT]: You know what they say about curiosity and the cat.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< theres a second half of the idiom that validates everything so frikitten tell me!!!  
timaeusTestified [TT]: No.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: In fact, I am going to log off now. I need to go out for a while.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont believe you  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not mr i fell asl33p in the sun and my classification is now extra crispy with a side of cherries  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its just past noon its the utter worst time to go out  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< youre just sitting there smirking at me arent you  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< bro  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Be back later.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< BRO  
  


timaeusTestified [TT] ceased pestering dataJammer [DJ]

You sigh and lean back into the chair, the faint smile fading from your sore face.

Shit now you actually  _ have  _ to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy the read <3 I maaaay have figured out exactly how the next arc goes so buckle up >:3c


	40. Dirk > Make a Plan

Of course it isn’t as simple a matter of getting up, kicking on some shoes and going out the door, no matter how abrupt you’d decided to be to mess with Davepeta. No. You’re going to make sure you don’t end up in the same situation as last time, with a list of shit you can’t get because you went to the wrong place.

So you find a map. And you look at the store’s website. Except it’s extremely unhelpful since it’s a corporate website and just espoused broad information and investing information, so you discard it the moment you confirm that yes, that particular chain IS actually a full grocery store and not just a convenience store, and therefore the place you actually want to go this time. Then you find a bus route-- _ Eastwood bus to Polk street _ , the information pulled out of the archive of your mind unbidden, even supplying the familiar and yet still bizarre accent _ \-- _ and a bus  _ schedule _ . And the fare and the estimated time required.

...and then finally you have your list.

You dig it out of the archives of your mind, double checking it against a few things you pull up on the internet. You think you’ve got a good grasp on what you have to do. Get in, get your shit, get out. Ignore the fuck out of everyone you don’t need to interact with.

Okay. You drag in a breath, and then let out a wheezing cough. Future Dirk, dust this shit. It’s not  _ that _ bad. Nowhere near a-- _ s _ _ warm of dust and cobwebs illuminated by lantern light. _

You probably should have done it during your cleaning fits already, but fuck it was  _ hot _ up here in the crawlspace. Why did you think shoving literally everything up here was a good idea? You can feel the eyes of the banished marionettes and stringless, plush puppets staring down at you as you fish a non-modified shirt (read: you ripped the sleeves off a couple) out of the dwindling pile of clean shit. Or as clean as it can be. You’ll need to do laundry soon, at least you don’t need to worry about seagulls making off with your shit this time, but that’s a distraction for another time. It reminds you of-- _ red grinning faces and decaying posters a life locked away.  _

Shit. Maybe you’ll clean it up if the weather ever chills out, it’s probably like, 10 degrees hotter up here. 

You want to keep looking, but you’re fairly confident there isn’t a single long-sleeved garment in the apartment. A state of affairs you might want to rethink that in the wake of leaving your arms vulnerable to cosmic radiation. At least until the end of the world. Even smack dab in the middle of the summer months, you could deal with being extra toasty if it kept this shit from happening again. There’s even a stash of velvety soft-as fuck smuppet felt up here. If you could find a sewing kit or something you could make a comfy as hell shirt out of that shit.

At least it would give you some goddamn color. Your wardrobe is so damn boring.

Not for the first time you find yourself picking through the plethora of nearly identical neutral colored collared tee-shirts in disappointment--they don’t even have  _ graphics _ on them. You miss your signature orange baseball cap logo. An ironic dash of color smack dab in the middle of everything when you otherwise embraced your pale-as-fuck visage.

He had some reason for this. You know he did. It’s too uniform. It’s an Image. Carefully cultivated, and likely of some ironic purpose you just don’t have the context to. You can hazard a guess, but it's something you’ve resigned yourself to never truly knowing the answer.

It’s still weird as fuck to not see a shred of maroon or pink anywhere either. It had really grown on you. It was a part of you now, the way orange had been--and still was. If orange represented the kid you’d once been, then the palette of your aspect was tied to who the game had driven you to become. 

You can’t find any such consistency to his shit. Just greys and blacks and whites. The only  _ hint _ of color, was the pile of hats you’d shoved in one of the boxes. Bright, saturated, eye-searing, the colors of the smuppets that had once littered the room...reds and blue and yellow and green but…

No orange. Maybe the hats were his version of the ironic color splash, although there  _ is _ a grey one propped on top of a yellow one which would just add to the monochrome, not break it up. A hat would probably be a good idea, though. Keep the sun off your face. Why wouldn’t he have oran--

You’re stalling. You’re stalling and you know it. You just grab the first damn hat on the pile and shove it onto your head, pulling the red-- _ of course it’s red, like you need to complement your cherry complexion-- _ rim down over your eyes before getting the fuck out of that place of banished and forgotten shit. 

The crawlspace ladder retracts up into the little rectangle in the ceiling tiles with a careless thud as you nudge it back into place, coughing to clear the last bits of dust and debris from your lungs. Hat, check. Sun protection, deployed, despite the fact that you  _ hate _ the clammy, sticky feel of it on your skin. Sunglasses--they don’t deserve to be called shades--check, as soon as you grab them off Lil’Cal. Which you do. They really do look like they suit him, but you’re certain he won’t mind if you take them back for a while. 

The sun is your Enemy. 

If you focus on  _ it _ then maybe you won’t hyperfixate on the people and everything  _ else _ that you know is waiting out there.

Money, also check. Makeshift wallet with shiny new debit cards, and a stash of cash, placed in a safe space in your house shit groove row, no possible collisions, and easy as fuck withdrawl.

You pause in the hallway, lingering near Dave’s closed door. You could just-- _ go. _ Like before. It’s possible you’ll be back before he even realizes you’ve left. 

...then again, you’ve barely spoken to him since he dropped off those letters days ago. He’s responded to the texts, sure, but…

Knuckles rap against the door frame. Gently, but loud enough to be heard inside. You listen, fabric shuffling. Keys clacking. A chair creaking. But nothing else.

Is he ignoring you?

You don’t fidget, but you want to. 

He could have headphones on.

You knock again. Louder. The chair creaks again. The typing slows. And then stops. But you don’t hear anything else.

“Dave?” You project your voice through wood and plaster, it sounds grating to your ears. Maybe you should just text him. That would be easier. Then he could see it at his leisure. But then, what if he didn’t check his phone? But shit, he’s obviously there. And probably listening. The typing did stop. Fuck it, you’ll just tell the door and then text him in a minute just in case. “I’m going out. Just--wanted to let you know.”  _ In case you can’t find me. _

Maybe it’s arrogant to think it would matter to him. That he wouldn’t just shrug his shoulders and assume you were off taking care of shit but…

Newt  _ had _ said Dave had been the one to show him to the roof that day. 

He hadn’t been there when you woke up.

“I’ll be back in a few hours.”

You turn to leave, moving down the hall a little to where your shoes waited by the apartment door. You toe them on--hadn’t bothered to untie them in the first place--and withdraw your phone from your sylladex, along with your keys. You hook a finger through the key-ring so they don’t fall, and then navigate the clumsy interface to the messaging function. You don’t even get to start typing up your message before the door opens behind you.

“What do you  _ mean _ you’re  _ going out _ , do you  _ want _ to get skin cancer??? I saw that shit you’re like, a 10 minutes tan away from second degree already look that it up its nasty you get like blisters and shit. It gets that bad and it won’t be all sunscreen and aloe anymore it’ll be doctors and burn treatments and I thought you were done with hospitals. You promised you were done with hospitals.”

You don’t turn around, but you do re-captchalogue the phone. You don’t need to finish the message now at least.

“We need food, bro. It’s not something I can keep putting off.” 

“Then order something! Shit we’ve survived on cheap ass pizza and chinese for months when you weren’t in the fucking mood to go out or come home or--” It cuts off in a strangled frustrated  _ noise _ that has your shoulders tensing and your head jerking around to face him. He’s clamped his jaw shut, small body shaking, fists curled at his sides, half turned back towards the door, as if he just wants to run away but can’t bring himself to move.

You consider shit. You consider your plan and the cupboard and the way he’s obviously--angry? Concerned? Both for some reason? 

...and honestly, did it even matter? He was obviously fucking distressed at this.

“Okay.”

That snaps his attention up. “What?”

“I said okay.” You don’t like this. You’ve already  _ planned _ and worked yourself up to do this. Because you need to do it. And if you  _ need _ to do it, then fuck you should do it  _ now. _ But… “If you want to order something for tonight--shit enough for a couple days, I’ll wait. Hell I’ll--” 

His jaw is all but hanging open. It’s like you decked him in the gut. 

You sigh, kicking the shoes off, and making a point of re-capchaloguing the keys. “You’re right.”

“I--” His jaw works, “Oh. Yeah. I am. Right. Shit I’ll just order us up a feast of the best fucking Chinese ever and you’ll never want to go back to those nasty ass beans again. Who needs the fucking grocery store when you’ve got one-stop wok-to-door delivery at your fingertips!”

You roll your eyes behind the cheap sunglasses and say two words, “Apple Juice.”

“... okay maybe there’s a thing or two that the grocery store is good for.” His fists have uncurled, and he crosses his arms, fingers tapping out a rhythm against the skin near his elbows. You  _ think _ that’s a sign he’s starting to relax. 

“I’ll replenish your stash in a couple days,” You promise, both to yourself, and to him. “If I go in the morning before it gets to be too damn hot, do you want to come with me?”

“Yeah yeah sure, as long as you aren’t still extra crispy--wait--”

There’s a beat of silence and a sucked in breath. Those tapping fingers stilled.

“I--sure why the hell not it’s not like I’ve ever been to the mythical land of food and juice before. It just kinda appears like magic once in a blue moon when the stars align like some giant cosmic postal service got the address wrong and dumped actual edible shit in there instead of weapons. At least if i go with you I can stop you from filling our cupboards with your nasty might-as-well-be-raw beans.”

You force the knot in your gut to uncoil, relief battling with residual irritation over your plans being disrupted. But in the end, you think the hesitant excitement building in Dave’s voice to be worth shouldering that burden a little while longer.

Davepeta is not going to let you live this down.

Maybe you won’t tell them.

...that meant you needed to stay off the computer for a while at least. Fuck. What are you going to do? Be Future Dirk and clean the dusty armpit that is the crawlspace?

Oh hell no.

“Dave.” You slip into a breath between nervous rambles that are clearly the result of him trying not to bolt from the situation, imagining the kid blinking at you owlishly behind those angled lenses that still look so damn weird on him. “Wanna watch a movie?”

“I--shit--” Again it’s like you knocked him flat on the floor, “I’ll need to tell my friend. I was talking with them before, you know, you evicted all sanity and knocked on my door about to deliver yourself gift wrapped into the arms of the giant ball of murderous gas in the sky. But, uh, which one?”

You shrug.

“You pick.”

“Great so no pressure at all cool.”

You don’t pay attention to the movie at all, but Dave stops paying so damn close attention to  _ you  _ about halfway through, absorbed in the utterly inane storyline. He even starts snarking back at the oblivious ham of a protagonist and his poorly written dialogue, like some editor going over the movie’s script with a bright red pen and tearing the draft to shreds.

Even if you didn’t make it to the store. Didn’t manage to get anything else done. Didn’t even manage to respond to Newt’s text about the meeting next week… Maybe this day wasn’t wasted after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's looking like the grocery store is turning into its own mini-arc haha.


	41. Dirk > Proceed with Phase One

Get in, get your shit, get out. 

Ignore the shit out of everyone.

The mantra winds through the back of your mind as you check yourself in the mirror. A dusting of pink still lingers on your cheeks, but the sheen from that nasty feeling lotion should be more than enough to deal with that. Plus hat. Plus glasses. You can’t even feel the twinge anymore from the bridge of the glasses resting against your nose.

There’s no way you can be described as “cherry flavored” anymore. Or extra crispy. Or whatever the people-in-your-life-whose-names-begin-with-Dave decide they want to call you to poke fun at your condition. You check the time on your phone and compare it to the schedule you memorized. Okay. Thirty minutes till the bus. It’s a ten minute walk. Probably. So time to get Dave up and out the door and you can just GO. Get this over with.

You knock on the door.

You can’t hear much this time. Which makes sense. If the computer is by the door (since you could him typing yesterday) the bed would likely be against the far wall. This place has the same layout as your apartment, which was  _ this _ apartment, some 400 years into that earth’s future. Logic and temporal continuity dictates the bedroom would be the same dimensions as well. 

You knock again.

You wait and wait and wait, locked up, checking the time ticking down on the display on your phone. Perhaps you should have factored in more of a buffer in case of grumpy child. Dave was usually awake fairly early though, so you hadn’t thought it would be an issue.

There--you feel the vibration through your hands as the notification light begins to blink.

_ do you realize what time it is _

_ Yes. _

_ 5:22:41 *am* _

_ I’m aware. The bus arrives in eighteen minutes. _

_ the sun isnt even up dude im still half asleep i miss my comfy as hell pjs _

_ this is probably some dream bullshit right now its impossible youd be standing out there texting me at 5:28:56 without busting in and dragging my ass out _

_ uh you dont plan to do that do you _

_ No. _

_ We now have 12 minutes. _

_ fuck _

_ is the store even open this early?? i thought most sane places started work after the sun woke up _

_ 6 am. I checked. _

_ of course you did _

_ you did put sunscreen on right?? _

_ its dark now but you know it wont stay that way _

_ Yes. _

_ okay okay fine ill get up _

He’s at the door in the blink of an eye, pulling open the painted wood and holding a hand out. His clothes are crumpled. Did he  _ sleep _ in them? You wonder how late he was up. You don’t remember hearing him make a late-night run on the fridge-- _ not that there’s anything there-- _ or the rushing water from the bathroom. In your light dozes you should have been woken up if he’d been up and about later than usual. You arch an eyebrow at him.

“The sunscreen. I need it.  _ I  _ don’t want fucking skin cancer either.”

“Left it in the bathroom.”

“Gee thanks bro.”

And so he vanished, taking a veritable nest of messy strider-white-blonde hair with him into the bathroom. It stays seared into your mind even after the door settles into its frame with a thump. You’ve never seen Dave-- _any_ _Dave_ \--looking so unkempt. Hair not even brushed, much less styled. It makes you think back to Bro-- _your_ Bro. The Bro you never got to meet because he died 400 years too early. The Bro you only got to know through recorded records and talk shows and interviews.

It made you wonder if he was prone to that same sort of very human-like bed-head.

Which was a silly question. Of course he was.  _ No one _ sprung out of bed with  _ perfect _ hair.

You try to imagine your Bro with the rooster hair you had to deal with and …

Just shove that image away. Deep into the recesses of your mind. Ignoring the faint chuckle as the ridiculous image tickles some small part of you that manages to look past the idolization and hero worship. The part of you who was able to ignore the lock-jaw caused by _it’s_ _Bro_ and see a hurting kid on that rooftop under the poisonous sky.

Dragging your attention  _ away _ from the door and the bundle of nerves and expectations and anxieties beyond it, you watch the clock on your phone, the timer ticking closer as you listen to the water running beyond the painted wood. You hadn’t even considered to properly protect  _ Dave _ from the sun. You probably should have. He was wearing long-sleeves already but…

You leave the hallway and retrace your steps, reaching up to tug on the string up into the crawlspace. If you remember correctly you left it right--Ah. There it was.

You’re ready and waiting as he exits the room, hair properly combed and styled and perhaps even sporting the slightest bit of gel to hold it in place, pale skin beneath dark, pointed lenses glistening with the oily sheen of Newt’s magic lotion. He freezes as you deftly plop the object on his head. It’s only after you quickly vacate his space that he reaches up carefully to touch the red brim that matches the red on his sleeves.

You don’t say anything, so he doesn’t either. Just lets his hands fall and swallows, sidling past your side of the hallway toward the door. You notice he already has shoes on, so you quickly slip yours on, peripherally aware of the back bunching up under your heel as you kick at it.

“You still want to do this?”

You hope he says yes.

He doesn’t. Just gives you a Look you can’t see, but you can feel, and then reaches for the door.

Get in. Get your shit. Get out.

And Ignore everything else.

You have less than 5 minutes to make it to the bus stop by the time you both hit ground floor. It’s 5:35 in the morning. The sun hasn’t so much as peeked over the horizon. The air is as cool as it’ll ever be again, the streetlights buzzing a faint hum in the back of your ears and your mind and it almost,  _ almost _ reminds you of the last time you willingly ventured out. The dark shadows of morning cloaked the the buildings, punctuated by a mixed bag of darkened and lit windows, reminding you of the view of derse from the sky. The darkness of the medium bubbling around you. Roxy’s dream room, surrounded by bits and pieces of the girl you knew and missed  _ terribly _ before reality stabbed you in the chest.

Literally.

In that moment, it isn’t a matter of convenience. Of reaching back and opening the door so you have all available options open to you. 

You  _ miss _ it.

The silence. The detachment. The comforting, familiar darkness of the medium, overlaying this far too vivid fever dream you’re trapped in.

“Didn’t you say something about a bus??”

The words knife through you. Bringing the world back in a roaring din of noise and color. Except that’s wrong, it hadn’t changed at all. You’d just shut it all out.

You suck in a shallow breath and then exhale, focusing down on the small, splotch of red and white at your side.

Nodding, you glance in the direction your memorized map would indicate, calculating the odds of making it in the intervening minutes before the bus was slated to arrive. Not good.  _ Maybe _ you could do it if you picked him up and  _ stepped--metal whistling through air-- _

No. Bad idea. Take the way he froze because you put a hat on his head, and multiply by it a thousand and you’d probably get what would happen if you forcibly grabbed him by the scruff and flung you both into the aether.

Fuck you had to be more careful.

“This way. It’ll be tight.”

“Nah don’t worry bro. Buses are either early, in which case even running like a horse on steroids wouldn’t save us from arriving to a cloud of smoke and exhaust as it rolls down the road laughing at our misfortune, or they are late, and we’ll have to wait 20 fucking minutes because the driver stopped because a pigeon was too dumb to realize it needed to cross the street.”

“Speaking from experience?” 

“Oh yeah. Totally. They call me the wandering ronin, traveling the bus routes of the city all alone and unsupervised since I was old enough to figure out you hid the spare key in those old ratty sneakers you leave near the door. It’sa me the bus-riding toddler, dodgin’ truancy officers and well meaning samaritan's all my life--the drivers known my fucking name and it’s Dave-on-a-bus going round and round--oh shit there it is isn’t it. Oh man they look so much bigger in person, it’s like a giant gas guzzling monster with a gaping maw and beedy glowing eyes except the eyes are actually the windows because that’s where the driver can fucking see shit and the lights are really more like bio lumi--luma--shit the bright stuff on creepy fish monsters--”

You touch his arm and he doesn’t protest, the world seeming to slow as you hurry toward the oncoming beast of metal and glass. Seconds stretch to minutes stretch to hours as you  _ focus.  _

Get in. Get Out.

Ignore the shit out of everyone else.

And then you’re there, standing before the sign as the monstrosity rolls to a stop, metal protesting and squeaking in an ear splitting squeal before glass doors opening wide like a maw waiting for it’s prey to just wander the fuck on in. You freeze for the briefest of moments, the driver’s annoyed scowl finally prodding you to lift your leaden feet off the concrete sidewalk and step into the carnivorous beast.

It’s just another one of your fucking tombs. Nothing worse. Better maybe, because at least this one wouldn’t have skeletons popping out of the woodwork to try and take your head off.

Taking the steps deliberately, you notice something in the bus driver’s face. A tightening of of the lips, or a narrowing of the eyes, you aren’t sure, but it’s directed  _ beyond  _ you, not at you, and makes you pause and turn around. 

Dave didn’t follow you up, like you’d expected him too. Not a word escapes the stony face, jaw clenched so tight you can see the tension in the way it deforms his natural facial shape. You’d suspected that ronin stuff was Strider-grade off-the-cuff bullshit, but you don’t feel any sort of satisfaction in knowing that he’s going through the same nervous terror that is knocking  _ quite _ loudly on your own equilibrium, one you’ve fortified-with-days-worth-of-mental mantras and planning shit that allowed you to get this far.

The bus-driver squawks with surprise as you suddenly appear outside the bus, placing your hand on the red-sleeved fabric covering the frozen shoulder, the rumble of the engines roaring in your ears. It rises like a crescendo, as the doors slam shut and the beast pulls away from the curb with an unexpected lurch. Dave flinches in front of you, jerking after the machine as it, and the unpleasant driver and his schedule rolls away.

“Breathe,” Quietly, but you know he can hear you, because that locked jaw unhinges and sucks in a breath of smog-filled air that makes him nearly gag, words tumbling free like 

“Shit bro--i--fuck--i screwed up im sorry--fuck we missed the fucking bus and its all my--its just an oversized car but-- the  _ screeching _ it--”

He’s trembling under your hand, just the slightest bit. It’s supposed to be a comforting gesture, but it makes you feel like anything but.. 

“...Dave…” You crouch, right there in the middle of the sidewalk in front of an empty bus stop at 5:50 something in the morning,  bringing yourself down to his level. His shades are an oversized tinted shield, and his face a stony wall but it’s the shaking and halting apologies and self debasement that really tell the story. “It’s okay.”

“Why aren’t you mad???” The words are quiet. Despite the pronoun use, you aren’t sure they  _ are _ directed at you _ ,  _ mumbled as they are. You decide to pretend you didn’t hear.

“The driver was an asshole. We’ll just take the next one.”

“How do--he didn’t say shit! _ ” _

“He slammed the door on us and left,” You point out, deciding, fuck the concrete, you’re going to sit on the curb instead of standing, “That seems pretty asshole-like behavior.”

“Yeah well  _ Normal _ people don’t  _ vanish  _ and appear five feet away in without looking like they fucking moved I--”

He gulps in another breath of air, this one just the normal acrid scent of houston in the summer that you couldn’t stand. The Eau de bus had made it ten times worse, catching in your throat and suffocating you. In comparison this was down right refreshing.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” You shrug, if you had to wait you had to wait. You’re both here. Out in the open. Even now the roads aren’t empty, with the occasional rumbling motorized vehicle rumbling by, sounds crescendo-ing and decrescendo-ing as the living pulse of the city shifts and moves. It’s almost too fucking much. If you let yourself focus on it. So you don’t. Or at least you try your fucking hardest not to. “At least we can’t get burned if the sun isn’t out.”

A strangled laugh.

He sits down beside you on the curb.

“When’s the next bus?”

“6:12”

“You know, we could walk back to the apartment instead of screwing around out here for 16 and a half minutes like winged rats waiting for someone to wander on by to toss out a handful of bread crumbs.”

“We could.” Glancing up at him through your periphery, “Do you want to?”

“I...no. Not really. You know if we do, the bread crumb fairy is gonna come floating down the sidewalk throwing a fucking fiesta worthy feast. Don’t wanna miss out on that quality grub yo.”

You don’t respond, and the conversation lapses into semi-comfortable silence when Dave pulls out his phone and begins texting someone.You turn your head to the sky, watching the dark grey blue edging ever so slightly lighter as the transition from nautical to civil twilight draws nearer. Dawn would still be just shy of an hour off, you think. Even with missing the first bus, hopefully it’s still early enough you’ll miss the bulk of the commuters, and you can be there and back again before the 8 am exodus that sparked your panic last-time…

Shit, you’ll have to deal with it if you don’t. It’s not like you can just panic-step again. You’d either leave him  _ behind  _ or grab him and you aren’t sure which would spark the worst reaction. _. _

“Hey...bro?” 

The hesitant question draws you out of your head. You make an inquisitive noise in response.

“I’ve been wanting to ask--” You can see the glow from the streetlight above you turning his strider-pale hand yellow as it guesters at you, “What’s with the shirt??”

Your shirt…? You glance down, frowning. You don’t think you grabbed one of the ripped shirts. Nope. Just one of your splinterself’s dull black collared tee-shirts with your home-made long sleeves peeking out from underneath it, shielding your damaged as fuck arms from any further exposure. The style made you feel like a knight actually, although you don’t think any of the known aspects would end up pulling off this particular color combination. You’d even made sure to grab the drab grey hat for yourself to avoid messing up your careful coordination.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“It’s just...not very  _ you _ , if you know what I mean bro.” The key-presses on his phone are lost in the sound of an oncoming car as it rolls loudly past them, spewing it’s nasty exhaust in the air and contributing to the nasty concoction burning your throat. “Not necessarily somethin’ I’d expect outta your wardrobe, ya know?”

You catch the edge of the sleeve between your finger and your thumb, feeling the plush fabric gliding against skin. So maybe it wasn’t the neatest job you’ve ever done, but that’s why you slipped it on underneath your actual shirt, to hide your shitty seams. “There was some extra felt in the crawlspace. I decided to put it to good use since you put me under house-arrest.”

A smuppet maintenance kit and too much time on your hands. You’d been mending your shit for years, but of course the convenience of an alchemeter had put you out of practice--it was like easing back into an old, comfortable rhythm. Your fingers had known what the fuck to do. And when they didn’t? You improvised.

“...oh god I thought I recognized that fucking shade of pink. You mean to tell me you’re wearing  _ smuppet skin?? _ That’s totally  _ gross _ dude. And why  _ pink _ ?? You’ve got smuppets ranging from piss-yellow to apple-red and you go and make a pink shirt??”

“I like the color.” It’s the closest you had to your aspect, so it’d been the obvious choice when picking through the pile of felt pieces. You might have gone with orange, but none of the bolts had been long enough.

Honestly slipping even just a bit into your wardrobe made you feel a lot more comfortable in your own skin. You’d have to figure out where you'd ordered the fabric from, and see if you could find some in the right shade of maroon.This fabric wasn’t  _ quite _ as nice as your godly jammies, but it was definitely up there.

You think that’s probably your bus rolling in the distance. Dave’s mumbling about pink and black and  _ Rose would get a kick out of this _ before you push yourself to your feet, causing him to scramble after you. The road is pretty much a straight shot, letting you see several blocks distance. 

You glance down at him and he’s clutching the phone in a white-knuckled grip, and following your gaze you can see the moment he spots the bus because it causes his face to wall back up. 

“I’ll be behind you this time, okay?”

You can tell he doesn’t like it. He hasn’t willingly put his back to you even  _ once _ since you woke up here. But he nods a jerking, uncomfortable nod, and squares his shoulders as the breaks hiss and the jaws open wide and welcoming and another driver, not with a scowl, but with tired indifference, glances down the steep stairs waiting for you.

In. Out. Ignore the shit out of everyone.

Except Dave. Focus on him.

You both make it onto the bus this time. The doors close with a hiss, you only have bills not exact change so you overpay but you don’t care. You both settle into a seat, surrounded by a smattering of other people, crossing paths in this giant fucking river of fate.

You ignore them all, and start counting stops in your head, clenching your teeth against the rumbling roar of wheels on pavement and the vibrations crawling through your skin.

Just like the fucking car. You  _ hate _ it. 

Outside the giant beast growls, thinking little of the two passengers it just devoured, and lumbers on its way.

x-x-x

_ yo rose _

_ look at this shit _

_ File sent successfully:  _ 20060728_061855.jpg

_ You look about exactly as I imagined you. The sunglasses feel a bit much. Have you considered something less likely to stab some unfortunate passerby? _

_ hey lay off the shades they are totally rad _

_ Is that your bro behind you? You two look alarmingly similar. The family resemblance is strong with this one. _

_ yeah  _

_ I approve of his color choices. Very bold. He needs something more to tie it together however. Perhaps a nice magenta sash to break up the black and accent the sleeves. _

_ The grey hat needs to go, however. A nice basic black would be perfect. Or perhaps no hat at all, the sunglasses could easily keep the balance there. _

_ of course you would _

_ ill pass on your fashion advice the moment i think he wont kill me for having taken the picture _

_ I guess its right up your alley  _

_ all gothic princess prophetess of the glub _

_ I don’t normally care so much for pink, or princesses, or anything else my mother finds particularly compelling, but your metaphorical perversion of her usual domains to one of the zoologically dubious pleases me. _

_ I shall keep this in mind the next time she gifts me a particularly frilly dress, and make the appropriate alterations. _

_ oh shit hes getting up guess the rides over _

_ time to faceplant directly into the path of the oncoming train full of unfamiliar territory _

_ why did i agree to this shit _

_ We already discussed this at an unholy hour last night. It is a good opportunity to test your boundaries. Spending time with your Brother in neutral territory is beneficial to you both. _

_ pray for me _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huzzah!
> 
> Honestly they were supposed to ACTUALLY get to the store today. But it was getting to be too long, and this week at work has been hard for writing. Hopefully I'll have that for you guys by monday! Uh Monday? I mean tuesday. I know my own schedule oTL


	42. Dirk > Adventures in Produceland

Your shoes scuff against the polished tile of the floor, your fingers curled tightly around the hard-plastic push-grip that allowed you to steer the cart. The rolling of the wheels grinding the softly playing ambient music into the ground and reducing everything to noise.

“Aw,  _ come on.  _ It’s my first time in the land of the sweets and home of the bread and you’re going for the rabbit food??? Why am I even here. Why did you even drag me along. I could be still sleeping right now.  _ You _ could still be sleeping. And then we could just order a pizza or something and not trek through all this--this--” He pauses, sucking a breath before just waving at  _ everything _ before you. Row after row  of  _ color _ and green leafy shit you’ve never actually seen before outside of labels on cans and on the internet. “...this!”

Exactly what you needed, and oh so conveniently--and you’d eat your hat if it wasn’t on purpose--laid  out right within moments of walking into the huge-- _ focus on what’s in front of you-- _ space. You don’t dwell on exactly how far back those aisle go, or get lost reading the signs above each trying to figure out where to even start. Because you have a place to go and it’s right there. You just shut it, and the few, very few, other shoppers milling about, out of your mind entirely, and just began pushing the cart in that direction, it’s loose wheels rattling in their housing that’s making you want to take the damn thing apart and oil it right there.

If you had any with you, you probably would.

You stop in front of a display and stare at the--you’re pretty sure it’s lettuce? One of your many memorized lists have sandwiches as good ways to shove vegetables into meals.  _ Fresh _ vegetables are necessary for growing children. There’s like, several different kinds of lettuce  _ alone _ , from boring round pale spherical ones-- _ iceburg, no notable nutrition, your research whispers back at you-- _ frilly purple to flat, almost rough feeling green.

You grab two that aren’t the iceburg--the really frilly shit, the tags calling them green and red leaf respectively--and hold them out to Dave.

“Pick one.”

“Bro I’m pretty sure the inside of our fridge has never even seen a vegetable before. It might even break down out of protest.” You don’t break your stare, and he fidgets a little, “Uh, I guess?? The purple one? It’s more interesting than the green one anyway. It’s not like I know the ins and outs of rabbit food. Can we move on to the good shit now?”

“Be patient, lil’bro,” You drop the Chosen One into the cart. “It’s not going to hurt either of us to try eating healthier shit.”

“Healthy, healthy, healthy.” He gripes as you move to the next display, and the next, grabbing a few more things you think are intended for sandwiches, like tomatoes, and some others that you can probably just toss together and eat raw. Fuck it, this is a trial run. If shit doesn’t taste good you’ll just buy something else next time.

“This is revenge for riffing on your beans isn’t it??” He complains as you’re debating what looks like some sort of prepackaged salad mix. On the one hand, it’s salad. Salad is  _ literally _ just plant shit. But if it’s packaged it isn’t necessarily  _ fresh _ is it? You take note of the ingredients, going over what you have, and what you’ve seen, before putting it back down and pushing the cart back deeper into the small miniaturized jungle taking up residence inside the food disbursement facility. You could probably just grab the ingredients they used and throw it together yourself. 

“I’m serious bro,  _ have _ you been abducted by some sort of health cult? Do I need to stage an intervention with the greasiest heart-clogging array of fried foods I can get delivered straight to our door? I’m surprised you haven’t gone for the green beans yet, given how you cling to their darker relatives--whoops there they go into the cart, how did I know. What next? Kale? Mustard greens? Basil? Why not, just load up on herbs while we’re at it.”

“Stop being such a drama queen, Dave,” You don’t actually pick up herbs, thank you very much. The small pile you have is probably a good enough start. 

“Fuck you, I’ll be as dramatic as I want.”

You try to resist--

“Language.” 

It failed.

The strangled noise he makes brings a smile to your face, and he stomps off, or starts to until you realize he’s  _ actually _ storming off and you react without thinking.

He freezes.

You barely have his arm for a split second before you drop it like he’s on  _ fire, _ digging the offending fingers into the stiff fabric of your pants. Or you try to. There’s not really much excess fabric there for you to grab onto, unlike with your puffy asshole pj pants. So you shove the hand into your pocket instead.

“I need you to stay close while we’re out, okay?” 

“‘m not a kid.” It’s mumbled. “I can handle myself in the fucking produce aisle.”

“Maybe,” You allow, and walk back towards where you left the cart--that’s several feet away. You hadn’t realized you might as well have flash-stepped. No wonder he froze up. Idiot. What are you going to say? That the idea of him being out of your immediate grabbing range in an unfamiliar place sends a spike of frenzied anxiety down your spine? 

You grope for something, anything. Looking around you’re right on the edge of the vegetables and--fuck that might work.“There’s a shit ton of apples over here and I know fuck all about apples. Help me pick. _ ” _

It falls completely flat, and is an utterly lame excuse. You know it. You know he knows it, but he lets you get away with it anyway. Retribution rings as a windfall of fruit landing on top of your vegetable mountain. Mostly sixteen different types of apples, but you managed to snag some  _ real fucking oranges _ and add them for yourself. By the time you’re moving on around the outer edge of the store toward what appears to be breads, and meat--and FISH--he’s chattering fluidly again.

Sandwiches needed meat don’t they? You ask Dave what he wants from the wall piled with all sorts of lunchmeats and he just gives you a surprisingly wordless shrug, so you just push past it toward the fish. 

...Can you make fish sandwiches?

At least you understand  _ fish. _

“I’m not even sure we have shit to cook that with, bro.” He remarks as you slide several fish filets (you want the whole fucking thing, head and all, but it looks like you need to Talk to someone behind the counter for that, and that makes your gut clench uncomfortably right now so filets it is) into the cart, “Unless you’ve been hiding some pans in the pile of blades that used to fill the cupboards.” A pause. “What happened to that anyway?”

“Put it up in the crawlspace. It’s not safe to leave them lying around.” ...okay, mental note. Look for, and or order a skillet at the very least. At least  _ your _ Bro had the decency to leave you with basic cooking utensils. Grilled fish was a goddamn delicacy, when you took the time to actually catch the slippery bastards. Gull was easier to hunt, the idiots would swarm any sort of bait you put out, but at the same time harder to eat except when you were at your most pragmatic.

You were careful not to over-hunt the gulls that nested in your defunct radio-tower. They were occasionally noisy neighbors, but if you took up a handful of food, they were willing company when you couldn’t deal with being alone, but couldn’t bring yourself to deal with  _ people  _ either.

You glance down to find Dave staring back up at you with a baffling expression, one that’s nowhere near as obviously guarded as it has been, but paradoxically that just makes it all the harder for you to fucking read.

“You never cared about that before.” 

“I also didn’t experience a narcoleptic fit in the kitchen before,” It’s not  _ the _ reason. But it’s a Good reason. Just because you haven’t had one since the roof doesn’t mean they won’t come back. Hell, if you ever manage to suss out the source of anxiety that’s preventing you from Waking the Fuck Up, they’d even be potentially happening More Often. “Imagine pitching face forward into that shit. Or don’t. It’s not pretty.”

You wince as that unreadable expression deepens, and you can even see an eyebrow climbing above the rim of his shades. Were you not supposed to say that? Probably not, he’s a fucking  _ kid  _ right now. 

There’s really no contest. Dave was a better guardian than you ever could be. It just wasn’t fair that he got to be stuck with a  _ you  _ who physically made his life miserable while all you got were videos and a faint foolhardy hope that could never, ever come to fruition.

That thought gets crammed in the mental crawlspace, don’t acknowledge it, eyes ahead and pushing the cart forward, following the clear as day path around the outside of the store the designers obviously wanted you to follow because hey, it’s efficient, and so far it’s hit literally everything you needed. You pay enough attention to make sure he’s following as you move--for all his spoken belligerence he hasn’t strayed more than a few feet away from you after you--said something earlier.

Buying healthy was fucking  _ hard.  _ So many goddamn pieces. Dave may have survived to grow up fine on whatever garbage your splinterself normally bought--which was apparently nothing regularly with a side of takeout?--but you’ve already committed. You can’t just point at  _ him  _ and go good enough. You’ve got to be better.

“Hey, hey bro, I don’t mean to interrupt your rush toward mom-blogger level of organic complete with food-pyramid infographics and serving sizes, but… Can we at least get some fucking ramen to go with this shit? I can see it from here, packets upon packets of packaged salty goodness--”

“Okay.”

“It’ll be nice to break up all this health shit with--wh--oh. Awesome. It’s nice to know you haven’t gotten too far into the bean juice and you can still acknowledge the overwhelming convenience and superiority of instant noodles. I’m just gonna nip right down this aisle real quick--”

This cart is abysmally constructed. Even beyond the rattling and squeaking wheels, they like to jam as you try to turn it away from the sloping path around the edge of the store and toward the aisles that run perpendicular towards the center. A squint up at the sign proudly proclaims “soups, crackers, cookies, and cereal” all up in aisle one. Are you seriously only touching the  _ first _ aisle now???

Fine. Whatever. Even with the plethora of healthy shit, it’s probably good to keep  _ some _ familiar foods.

You  _ do  _ need more beans, but while there’s plenty of canned shit here, it mostly looks like soup. Which, surprise, surprise, was listed on the sign. You aren’t particularly sure if you  _ appreciate _ the obvious care someone, somewhere, put into organizing all this shit, or be overwhelmed by the fact that  _ people _ did this period. This isn’t some game-construct dreamt into existence in order to fill out the environment or challenge you on your journey to self actualization. 

...You’re a self-centered little bitch sometimes, aren’t you. 

Which then leads you right back around to the irony that it fucking was, because all of this, from the packet of oreos in your hands to the physical body you inhabit, was  _ dreamt up _ by dying eldritch abominations in order to give your universe a single, final shot.

You throw the oreos into the cart and shove that particularly nasty train of thought into the mental crawlspace--which must be getting uncomfortably full at this point.

Dave ranges ahead of the cart, out of reach, but you don’t mind too much since he’s straight in your line of sight as it is. Contrary to his fixation on the noodle packets he doesn’t immediately rush them, instead taking his time to stop and hover and peer at various somethings on the shelf before moving on. The cart gets a multiple arm-fulls of instant noodle bowls of various flavors--and you pretend not to notice the incredulous look Dave sends you when he notices the blue film packaging on the oreo package.

Turning the cart completely is an ordeal thanks to the stubborn as hell wheels and terrible handling, so instead of returning directly to the back wall to continue towards the dairy, you just keep following the flow of the store, using gentle curves instead of a full 180, once you hit the wider, open space at the end of the aisle. You glance down the next, mapping out the path in your head, winding up and down one aisle to the next--do you even need the next? Checking the sign--

Pasta. Coffee. 

Canned Vegetables.

Aw hell yeah. You can’t skip this one 

“Are you gonna stand there all day or are ya gonna fuckin’ move?”

The unfamiliar, heavy drawl busts through your bubble like a goddamn ogre. Half your brain pinpoints Dave immediately--between you and the Aisle, protected by the cart if shit comes to blows. Safe. The other half takes in the scowling, grumpy bulk that had come up from the front of the store--shit you’d forgotten you were near the entrance again, nothing between you and oncoming people aside from a line of clerks and the edge of the produce section that you’d entered with--

If this was a dersite agent, or the skeletal beasts that made up the primary residents of your tombs, you would have skewered the guy already. Only your desperate grip on the hard plastic keeps your katana in your strife specibus because instinct would leave you with a bleeding body and most likely a murder on your hands.

“Hey, hey bro, bro,” There’s a tug on your sleeve from the side. The soft fabric brushing up against skin. That’s…

“I’m done lookin’ at the stuff here, thanks for waiting for me,” It’s in a stage whisper, but behind the safety of your cheap-as-fuck shades and your resting blank expression, your eyes are locked on the man’s steadily reddening complexion. You  _ know _ he can hear it. “Oh man dude sorry didn’t see you standing there, do  _ you _ want to catch a look at this sweet ass tupperware here??? Hella perfect for lunchboxes, picnics, pot-lucks with all the nice old ladies down the street--”

“No.” The man grinds out, “Just get the hell outta my way.”

“Dude there’s--”

“There’s more than enough space for you to go around.” You force yourself to exhale, tearing one hand off the bar and letting it land on Dave’s shoulder. He doesn’t let go of your sleeve. “We’re looking at the display.”

You force yourself to turn away from the man, even as it sends your instincts screaming at you that there’s an enemy at your back. If you draw a weapon on him you  _ will _ kill him. What was the second part of your mantra?

_ Ignore the shit out of everyone else. _

There’s a display on the end of the aisle. It’s filled with boxes upon boxes of food-containment sets in various sizes. You study that shit as if it was the most important thing in the fucking world, even as you’re  increasingly aware of that bundle of nerves at your back. 

And then...it breaks in a flurry of words. Some you recognize as epithets. Others you don’t. And even some you only barely recognize as slurs once used by a society that had been long since dead when you’d learned of them.

The man stalks his way down the aisle you  _ wanted  _ to go down. To your utter lack of surprise, there was plenty of space between the nose of your cart and the edge for him to pass. You exhale, forcing yourself to let go. Prying your fists open, the tension leaving your palms aching

“What crawled up his grumpypants and died??” Dave muttered, “We probably should skip this aisle, huh?”

You glance up at the canned vegetables printed on the sign, and back at the bulk of a man loitering near red plastic containers, and make a conscious effort to keep breathing.

You’ll come back.

“Let’s go find your juice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is wrapping up the store, and seeing what Dave thinks of the entire expurrience :3c
> 
> Thank ya'll so much for reading <3 Your comments and poking at the bits you find most interesting give me things to look forward to reading.


	43. Dave > Hate Being a Kid (Even Though It's True)

Beep.

_ Tick. _

Beep.

_ Tock. _

Beep.

_ Tick. _

The beeping of the scanner fades into the background, and while you  _ know  _ it doesn’t sync up exactly--human hands can be steady and fast but it aint got shit on clockwork--the world seems to shift around you until it feels like it does so that’s good enough for your brain to let it get absorbed into your personal BGM track like some shitty mashup someone decided to upload to youtube for cheap views.

Although, right now you don’t really mind thinking about that steady, unfaltering rhythm. It’s almost comforting. Less of annoying mental tick and more a running theme. A leitmotif in the constantly changing score of your shitty life. You aren’t sure what that says about you, that instead of the sick-nasty beats and irregular rhythms you like to work into your own composition, your sponge of a brain seems to crave the steady and unfaltering ticking, and tocking.

You’re not too proud to admit inside the sanctity of your own head, that steady and unfaltering are two words that are very much missing from your vocabulary right now. And it tends to come down to one thing.

There’s a whole cart full of shit between you and him. Shit that you helped pick out. It’s downright domestic, that’s what it is. Full on Hallmark, hey honey what do you want for dinner today oh look at that we’re out of milk mind running out to the store.

He actually did get milk, after staring down at the carton and you could have sworn an honest-to-gog possibly not ironic smile existed on his face for half a nano second. Which is honestly not freaking you out as much as it should, but you’re trying not to think about that right now because this shit is making you realize you’ve never had actual  _ milk _ in your life, and now there’s going to be a carton in the fridge next to your handpicked, fresh-off-the-shelf Nantucket AJ in the glass bottles which is the good shit Bro  _ never  _ got you.

_... _ Now  _ that  _ is what’s freaking you out. 

This entire grocery run has been an exercise in adapting your signature controlled freak out, trailing after Bro like a puppy on an invisible leash, throwing shit into the cart, waiting for him to tell you no, getting wigged out that he never does, and then pushing forward with a shield of sarcasm and jabs to try and cover it all up.

Rose would have something you say about that, you think. You should check in with Rose. You did make that whole fuss about having found your new religion, ie addressing your bro related rants solely at her after John pulled that stunt on you. Move over egbert, there’s a new bff in town. So what if you-- _ allegedly-- _ were a little wound up lately. And maybe somewhat fixated. He’s your  _ Bro. _ You live with the dude. It’s perfectly normal to be hyper aware and baffled and need to rant about it, isn’t it?

Your phone is a weight in your hand as you pull it out of your sylladex, thumbing through the menus in a path that’s getting so familiar it might as well be burned into your muscle memory. It’s too bad John doesn’t have a phone--he said he was going to try and pester his dad about it, but not to hold your breath, and honestly it's not like  _ you _ left your apartment regularly like oh say right now, or when you were kidnapped for a couple days--but those were all one-off occurrences weren’t they?

Bro wouldn’t  _ really _ start dragging you out of the apartment to  _ do _ shit. Like a  _ family. _

...would he?

Not willingly, you don’t think. Not after how the shit with the cowboy went down. Bro’s always been in and out, you always figured he’d have a handle on shit since he was, you know, a grown ass adult who adulted and obviously would have had to do adulty things while he was out of the apartment. Seeing him--lock up--you’d  _ felt _ the spike of  _ intent _ that usually was the only warning you got before steel flying at your face--only there was no steel and no words, only your bro’s presence coiled so tight you were just waiting for it to burst, and the malcontent anger of a self-entitled asshole who saw a pair of weirdos in his way and decided to take his grumpy-didn’t-have-enough-fucking-coffee attitude out on you--

Fuck you still don’t know what you did. Or why you did it. What made you reach out and grab those ridiculous pink sleeves and drag his attention  _ away _ from the idiot-who-probably-didn’t-deserve-to-get-filleted. Or at least, didn’t deserve to be the one who got your bro sent to prison. 

It was the first thing he  _ told you _ when he gifted you your first strife deck-- before the real training started, back when you would still hang in the living room and play xbox and he’d startle you by somehow tossing a smuppet at your head in the middle of a sick-ass combo and make you mess up and he’d just make a comment about constant vigilance--was to  _ never _ draw shit Outside unless they had a blade on you first because he was not going to bail your ass outta juvie and really orange wasn’t your color anyway. It looked terrible on you.

So you’d just, talked. And talked, and grabbed his attention and kept it until he seemed able to pull his shit together, and the dude decided to do the  _ smart  _ thing and  _ go the fuck around. _

Your fingers falter and you thumb past Bro’s number--not who you were originally looking for, even if you ended up hovering, and no point in texting him he’s literally feet away from you, a pile of fraying nerves waiting for the cashier to finish her god-given duty of ringing up your haul and taking his cash. You can feel his eyes on your back as if the moment he looks away you’re going to pull a Bonnie and Clyde and make a break for it, guns blaring to the sound of some twang-tacular banjo strummin’. You wouldn’t. You’re not an idiot. 

You’d almost forgotten, during the last two weeks, between the blood in his hair and the bags under his eyes, and the cherry red of sun-damage fading to a--ever so slightly darker--shade than your normal skintone--

It’s  _ Bro _ . 

And maybe he’s trying. But that grip on your arm had been  _ fast _ and strong and you  _ know _ you wouldn’t be able to get away if he came after you, cart or no goddamn cart between you.

You don’t know how to feel.

So you just bottle that shit up and keep scrolling, past Bro, past Stevens (who’d insisted you add his number in case Bro ended up face-first in the shower or something. At least  _ someone _ understood that something was Wrong. And the other shoe has to drop. You aren’t allowed to have--) to the last entry in your list.

There’s a small litany of prayers waiting for you in Rose’s message chain, each one dripping sarcasm, and sufficiently aged during your--god had it really taken an hour and a half???--long expedition through the unclaimed aisles, they might as well be fermented. 

That can’t be right. It  _ can’t,  _ even as the exact, down to a second, duration bubbles up through the generic background noise and burns itself into your brain, matching up to the small white number staring at you from your notification bar..

It just...

It’s a little past 8 am. The summer sun is awake and throwing down it’s rays like its fighting words, taunting you from behind the automatic sliding doors you can see from here. Gone is the weird half-light of too-goddamn-early and the half-asleep why-the-fuck-not that let you plow ahead with this batshit insane idea in the first place.

Fuck.

This really isn’t a dream.

You hover over the open message, your mind blank and--almost--silent. Almost. Almost except the quiet whimpering you seriously want to divorce from your psyche but it’s buried in there too gogdamn deep, even deeper than the ticking and the tocking. Whimpers of broken dreams and expectations that you shattered your goddamn self because it hurt less than to hope and have it never be.

You glance up surreptitiously behind the anonymity of your shades, watching as the increasingly unnerved woman stutters in her rhythm to weigh and key in one of Bro’s weirdo produce purchases, throwing the whole mashup out the window in a righteous  _ squealing _ trainwreck. He hasn’t so much as said a word this whole time, leaning forward with one elbow on the handle of the cart, cushioning his chin with his hand. You can tell he notices the attention, because that impassive neutral expression stutters with the faintest scrunch of the nose--and there’s the tip of an eyebrow over the edge of his stupid replacement shades.

You...hadn’t wanted his full attention. You hadn’t. And now that you have it your throat feels so dry, the ice crawling up your spine, and the unexpected flutter of your nerves has you wanting to abscond  _ right now. _

“Are you gonna drag me back by the ear like a misbehaving toddler if I go over and stand by the door?” Space. Space would work. Space and just a little bit of time, and then you’ll get a handle on…

This.

Your face is schooled so damn good it would be getting straight As if it was taking all your stupid home-schooled quizzes _. _ “The signal’s shitty in here.”

It actually is, blinking between one and two bars right next to the clock on the notification bar, but fuck even if you want to talk to Rose you more want to get out of the three foot radius  _ more. _

He inclines his head to follow your proposed path, which is still in his line of sight--you can see the fucking door from here, and the sun and the bright yellow-white of baking concrete--then back over at the items still piled high on the belt in front of the register. 

And then he straightens, losing the loose posture.

You hate that tension. That uncertainty. That-- _ don’t say worry _ \--

Lips pressed in a line, the words like sandpaper in your ears. You don’t know what answer you want. Yes-- _ do what you want fuck if I care-- _ or “Can’t you just wait? This won’t take much longer.”

“Whatevs.” You grumble, forcing that mild and entirely irrational panic back down, just like you have been all day--which has only been less than 2 hours  _ don’t be a drama queen, dave _ \--and go back to your phone. 

Maybe it’ll work anyway.

_ i should be happy rose _

_ why am i not happy _

The swirling circle of limbo curls in on itself next to the messages, the bars on you phone flickering between one teeny tiny little shit and one that’s slightly bigger but still can’t do anything.

The messages come back red and glaring up at you from the screen. 

Sending failed. 

Figures.

You type more anyway, to the background track of a scanner beeping, to the feel of your Bro’s presence at your back. Words that come back red and bleeding and lost in limbo. 

Shit like this. Domestic shit.  _ Family _ shit. You’d seen movies and TV shows and laughed at them because it was hella uncool. Uncomfortable, saccharine garbage.

Just. Uncomfortable, as you looked at it and felt so alienated. It couldn’t be  _ you _ . You were cool, and Bro was cool, and the rest of the world were lameo-soft pansy chickenshits.

That discomfort eats at your insides in another way, now, even as you laugh at Bro when he stares uncomprehendingly at the more-than-small pile that had grown into a mountain of bags. Too many bags. He’s a out-of-season Christmas tree with ornaments of bags hanging off of and in his arms, and you have absolutely no idea how he’s carrying them all, but he doesn’t complain, and doesn’t ask for help, and barely acknowledges the bag-lady when she offers to get one of the guys to help carry them out to his car. 

But you don’t have a car you got here by the bus and now you have to get all this shit onto the bus and then home from there. Somehow.

You can still see her wide, incredulous eyes as he just shakes his head and loads that pile of bags into his arms, muscles bulging and arms shaking in a way that makes you painfully aware that he’s  _ not _ as strong as he should be. The hospital. The weeks of missed training and lapsed conditioning--

_ Not  _ your problem.

Just like it’s not your problem that he had to buy so much shit. 

“We could just call.” And then he’s looking at you except you aren’t entirely sure he can see through that semi-opaque bag full of fish in front of his face. Well you said something so you have to continue so you pull up you big boy pants and push the words out anyway, “Stevens, I mean. He has a car. I don’t know if I trust you not to drop shit with that giant mountain, especially on those steep-as-fuck stairs since we need to get this shit on a bus. And even then there’s thirty fucking minutes in a rattling tin can--”

“It’s fine. I got it.” You  _ think _ he jerks his head toward the door, much to the relief of the poor woman who seems on the verge of hyperventilating at the way physics are making the upper portions of the tower sway. 

“You drop my AJ and I’m never gonna forgive you, bro.” The warning is half-hearted, but you follow at your invisible leash length of three feet behind him as he makes his way shakily towards the door. If you know Bro at all, when he decides to do something he’s going to do it-- _ ignore that he stopped his plan for  _ **_you_ ** _ and that’s how you even ended up here in the first place.  _

He doesn’t drop anything. At least not by accident. When you reach the bus-stop everything  _ does _ settle deliberately onto the concrete with a variety of thunks and thin plastic rustling and even some glass clinking that makes your stomach do a somersault. Bro doesn’t seem bothered by anything as he just abandons his burdens and walks over to check the complicated as fuck set of tables pinned behind plastic glass to tell noob bus-goers like yourself approximately when you can hope to stop roasting and pile into the mobile people-eating-metal-squealing-monster.

“Twenty minutes.” Then he falls. You definitely weren’t startled into a sudden panic by this action, nor did you make a sound that resembled  _ anything _ like distressed squawking as he unceremoniously plopped himself on the sidewalk next to the mountain of bags in a pile of limbs. You didn’t suddenly find yourself in the kitchen at sunset. In the living room. On the roof. With nowhere to go because you’re who the hell knows away from home. Your phone is in your hand because you need to finish composing a message to Rose-- _ the red ones don’t count-- _ and not because you need to call--someone.

You just...rolled your eyes behind your shades, that’s all. As if this fucking weird display was normal. And fuck if you know it might be. You do seem to find him on the floor A Lot.

“You realize there’s a perfectly functioning bench right?” Cool. Controlled. Even a dash of sarcasm. Calling it a bench was a bit of an exaggeration. Just three worn planks of worn, weathered, sun bleached, wood across what’s probably a rusted iron frame. But wood isn’t gonna be anywhere near as hot as concrete will be--and honestly probably already is. Under this hellscape of a sun, a little over an hour is probably plenty to get it warmed beyond the pleasantly cool curb you’d sat on this morning. “You don’t need to do this shit in the middle of the sidewalk.”

He dismisses the suggestion with a wave, but does push himself out of the ungainly pile of limbs and  sits cross legged on the concrete. You force your face into something that isn’t what you’re actually feeling, you don’t actually care what right now, and pointedly march past him, climbing up onto the wooden bench because it’s fucking  _ daylight _ and there’s people across the street and cars going by, and you’re hit by this fucking sense of whiplash between feeling like a kid on a leash, and now the only one of the two of you acting like an adult. 

He shifts position so his back is resting against the front edge of the bench, near your knee, but not touching. The proximity seems to do  _ something _ because that prickle between your shoulders that you’d come to associate with a particular focus on you, ebbs away.

“So.” He speaks, and you’re hella surprised, since you’d figured it’d be right on back to the good ol’ silent treatment until the bus arrived, “You have Newt’s number?”

What--oh. Right. Stevens.

“Well yeah. Had to stay with him for a few days. Pretty sure exchanging digits is the first step in responsible babysitting etiquette,” You’d appreciated it, because it meant he let you lock yourself in his room and he could just text you to ask if you wanted food or something. “Is it wrong? He’s  _ your  _ friend isn’t he?”

“Evidently.” 

“Evidently?? He went out and bought you fucking  _ sunscreen  _ bro. He didn’t have to do any of that shit.” 

Not to mention, he was the first place you were supposed to go if your bro ever--How is this shit even up for debate?

“In case you haven’t realized, your Bro is an absolute moron when it comes to people.”

Woof. Okay. Pulling out the sarcastic third person now? You ignore the way your brain conjures up all the evidence and points at each one as if to say, ‘he’s right you know,’ between you and Stevens and his recently deceased friends you’d never even heard of before... Instead of following that particular hopbeast into its hella not-your-problem den, you just roll your eyes and fire back with a deadpanned, “Evidently.” 

He snorts, and doesn’t say anything more, so you turn your attention back to your phone as the crinkle and shifting of plastic and the items inside work their way into the background score of this particular movie. You ignore the red text of the unsent, your eyes skimming over it as if it doesn’t exist. Because it doesn’t. It’s a manifestation of your internal monologue in your iconic red text and this batch isn’t leaving your fucking skull.

You’re kinda surprised Rose hasn’t checked in by now. It’s been almost two and a half-- _ 2:11:43 _ \--hours since her last one.

_ dearest rose _

_ i wanted to make this shit sound like an old-timey war letter but that sounds so fucking weird so nope nevermind the goofs off its so far gone it might as well be flying into the heart of a blackhole never to be seen again _

_ just wanted to let you know the d-stri is still alive and kicking unbested by the foray into the bermuda-fucking-triangle that exists in the center of every krogers eating cell signal like its for breakfast and speaking of breakfast theres a haul of more fucking food than i know what to do sitting right in front of me on the sidewalk even if more than a third of it is rabbit food its like a fucking fiesta up in here _

_ i got enough ramen to live off of for months just gotta stuff my cheeks like a goddamn squirrel and refill my stash and i never have to worry about shit again _

_ and _

_ i got aj rose _

_ *AJ* _

_ not even bro is gonna ruin this hype train _

_ though I gotta admit hes being *really* fucking weird _

_ the dude just spent an hour wound tighter than a gogdamn cookoo clock like to the point where i coulda sworn wed be on the run from a literal murder and not the fun call 911 i just witnessed a murder after a particularly nasty set of sick burns _

_ and now hes sprawled out in the middle of the sidewalk muttering and rummaging through bags like a gremlin ignoring the shit out of everything what happened to all that hypervigilance _

_ is this adulthood?? _

_ was everything i knew about the world fucking wrong?? _

_ do you hear that thats my expectations shattering into a million tiny gremlin-bro sized pieces _

_ come on rose im waiting _

_ paging dr sigmund phil rose  _

_ im all but begging you to do your psychoanalyst schtick _

_ did you fall asleep?? _

_ nice to know my distress and anxiety wasn’t enough to stop you from nodding off like a baby into dreamland _

_ you probably need the sleep though i still dont know how you were still awake at 6 in the morning when we were _

_ fuck when did i finally go to bed _

_ too damn late for you to be awake normally it took bro hammerin at my door at 530 to drag me clean out of snoozeville and im a hell of a light sleeper _

_ may your dreams be full of shit like  _

_ i would say tentacles and existential horror since i know you like that shit but that sounds a bit too much like that dream youve been having that wigs you out so rainbows and kittens it is _

_ wait thats on the princess end of fantasy bullshit um lets find you something else _

_ not dragons though because you arent allowed to have a dragon dream before i do im the knight its my job to fight the dragons _

_ wizards maybe _

_ yer a wizard rose _

_ i could see you with a dope ass wand all black and gnarled with skulls on the end blowing shit up _

_ if youre stuck with helpless nothingness and confusion how better to counteract that shit than with a power fantasy full of reigning down mega flares from the goddamn sky and turning the entire planet into swiss cheese with giant flaming meteors and-- _

“Dave.” Bro’s voice cuts through the utterly rad dream you were weaving for Rose, and drags your attention away to find the rustling has stopped, and there’s something  _ big  _ and  _ round _ and  _ red  _ in your face, being held by calloused fingers by a long white stick.

“What the hell is this?”

He shrugs, the plastic-wrapped offering bobbing as he waves it invitingly, “The label says candy apple flavor.”

You eye it. And him. When the hell did he slip that into the cart while you weren’t looking? You thought you’d caught everything. Even the  _ Oreos-- _

“This is because of the shit I pulled with the cowboy, isn’t it??” You hesitate, more words bubbling up under your tongue and this was a bad idea, you’re gonna push and push and eventually he’s got to snap-- “Saving your ass like that.”

His nose scrunches the slightest bit, but he doesn’t deny it. Maybe the sunscreen wasn’t working, because he looks pretty fucking red under a smattering of freckles--had he always had freckles or were you never this close enough to see--until he turns his face away, the brim of his grey hat throwing it into shadow.  Just keeps holding the solidified sugar sphere in your face.

Well fuck it.

Not above being bribed to keep your silence, you take the fucking lollipop, and shove it into your mouth.

After you take the plastic off, of course.

It’s like nirvana up in here. A fruity sweet explosion of apples and sugar and pure unadulterated awesome all packaged into a goddamn sucker that punches you in the face with sheer joy.

Not even the utter ear shredding metallic cacophony that heralded the eventually arrival of your bus could bring you down. In fact, you found yourself significantly cheered, enjoying the treat as you watch Bro bamboozle another poor schmuck by using his flashstep to get all the shit piled until a seat before the dude could even start to close the door on him or you, and maybe... 

_ todays been pretty cool i guess _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whuf. That's a long one innit. Here's the end of that mini-arc, huzzah!
> 
> We've still got some things to set up before the next major arc (and our first major time skip) so hope ya'll are in the mood for getting down to business ^^
> 
> Next chapter should be Dave again, if all goes according to plan.
> 
> Edit: Oh right! Huzzah 100k! *throws confetti*


	44. Dave > Have Your Wish Granted

One sucker, one bowl of ramen, a sad attempt at a sandwich and a handful of carrots you agreed to take under threat of your bro’s vaguely pleading and therefore hella weird frown, it’s 18 hours, 22 minutes and 13 seconds later, you are well into the dreaming phase of your sleep cycle. Which, all things considered, is a fairly boring and entirely normal way to cap off a day that had you on so many ups and downs you don’t know which way the surface is anymore, so rather than go swimming off and end up drowning, you figure you’ll just hold your breath and float and hope you’ll end up surfacing some day.

Just. Floating and shit. In your room in your purple and silver tower above the purple-red simulacrum of your card-suit bedsheets. Nothing different. Nothing new. Ticking and tocking. Ticking and tocking. Letting yourself get lost in the thrumming of the universe around you.

Eyes close behind your shades, cutting off the hazy purple-red room and the faint light from beyond. Fingers tap against the inside of your arm, the 4/4 rhythm of your own heart, syncing up to the giant metronome at the center of everything. 73 minutes. That’s how far you’ve gotten and you’ve got another 6 hours of this to go through before you have to wake up and face the sunshine and to be perfectly frank you don’t want to.

It’s steady. And reliable. And maybe when you wake up and look back on the fragments you barely remember you’ll complain that you didn’t get to do anything heroic or interesting, such a waste of your beyond-creative imagination here, c’mon subconscious get it together and _do something_ , but for now, especially after the emotionally fucking stressful day--week--months-- _life,_ you just let yourself just…

Unwind and Be

Unfortunately, something _else_ had other plans.

Or maybe you were just finally going to get your wish.

Something disturbed the music. The steady rhythms knotting and warping, strands of thread pulled free and fraying from the weave, a mess of intersecting and branching bullshit spiraling around and around itself, ducking in and out of the mainstream like salmon flinging their way up a goddamn waterfall in and out in and out always moving--

A paradox that existed everywhere and nowhere and it was _angry_.

Survival instincts kick in-- _drilled into you through years a lifetime of surprises and ambushes and bros cruel pranks--_ a mounting horror washing your calm away as everything _shattered around you_ _you cant be doomed if you no longer exist--_

Your tower is gone when you open your eyes, leaving nothing but shifting darkness and a _storm_ . A swirling storm of green on the horizon, winds howling and ripping at you, at your cape, hungry and hunting and _hating._ A skull forms in the amorphous clouds, long and snake-like, a dragon of mist and hate with blood-red eyes and blood on its cheeks.

There’s a weight in your hand, a pure white sword pulled from the aether--your strife deck?--its nothing like the katanas you know, the heft and balance is all wrong, but something _shifts_ and you settle into a stance as if you’ve been wielding it for years. Your heart is pounding, your mind racing as the storm bears down on you in a screaming rage, a hunter who lost its prey, again and again and lashing out at the only other thing it could reach. You could almost hear words on the edge of the winds, words you know, you recognize, because you’ve grown up with them laughing and taunting you for _years_ in the back of your mind. Words that tell you that you’re useless. A waste. That bro was better and always would be better and--

_Maybe you should’ve died instead of him. You’re no hero. He was he was he raised you trained you sundered skies for you died to try and save your bacon and where the fuck were you? You arrived too late and couldn’t even take his sword or bury the fucker--_

“ _Oh hell no. Fuck that noise you don’t get to touch that shit that’s personal_ . _That’s_ my _trauma you can’t fucking weaponize it without my purrmission, not cool brah._ ” They are almost lost in the howling winds, but the new words reach you, the pressure of the storm lessening enough to allow you to push yourself to your knees. The blade of your sword is sunken into the ground-- _there’s a ground_ ?--sticking out of grooved black shale. You use it as leverage, pulling yourself up in the shelter of the windbreak. You look up to find the world tinted green--several shades darker than the dragon coiled around you, almost black--translucent and ephemeral but unmistakably _feathered_ wings spread and agitated like the crows on the roof if you startled them, beating to push back the poisonous assault. The dragon screams at you, recoiling into a dark, almost solid mass against the glowing orange and red backdrop, looking almost black in the light from the lava flows, distant structures loom stark and grey of unforgiving metal and gears screeching and clunking along with the beat of your heart.

Metal shrieking against metal. A sudden surge of adrenaline and misplaced terror you drive the white blade into the mass and it screams and screams and scre--

And then there’s silence.

You fall.

You don’t fall far, gasping and clawing at the blankets surrounding you. Shit is still twisted--but it settles. The screeching fading into that same, steady pulse running at the back of your mind.

You lay awake staring at the ceiling. Your heart thundering in your ears. The organic structure of the muscle didn’t care for that damn ticking and tocking if it wanted to flip the fuck out and flood your body with stress hormones it was going to fucking do it.

Your dream is already fading, but you’re too agitated to really focus on it. Your body buzzing with energy, you throw off the sheets that you’re all twisted up in, it's far too fucking chilly for summer and you’re cold and suddenly missing your jammies-except-you-are-in-your-pajamas-- fuck, the world is tilted and it spins and you catch your head with your palms and _push._

The pressure grounds you. You just breathe in time with the music, deep and not at all panicked nope not at all, and will your heart to chill the fuck out.

It doesn’t.

You grope instinctively for your shades, before you remember they are probably on the desk to avoid breaking yet another set. And the fact that it’s--04:08:34--so early, daylight isn’t even a twinkle in the sun’s eye. C’mon Dave let the sun enjoy its time off dont rush it when you don’t need it. You don’t need your shades.

Shapes and spots of different colors and patterns dance in your vision even before you remove your hands, and keep spinning even after. You blink them away, letting your eyes adjust slowly and focus on your breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Tick. Tock. Follow the rhythm.

The setting moonlight carves through the window and hits something. A silhouette. Tall and gangly and limp, sitting on the small sill. Lil’Cal’s frozen grin and glassy blue eyes stare deep into your soul, and all your hard work at calming yourself down gets defenestrated.

_never safe just waiting for the other foot to drop you told her you told them it was Wrong--_

You grab the C-man off the window and shuffle out. It’s not like his fault. He’s a puppet. It’s not like he flip-flopped his way down the hall into your room alone. He was stranded. You just need to take him back. Maybe slip him into *bros* bed for some sort of petty revenge

You hesitate in the hallway, noting something off. There isn’t a light. Bro isn’t up working. But there is a major lack of _something._ Your already raised hackles into the stratosphere. You clutch the puppet close to your chest, a clammy, crawling feeling spreading across your skin. If he’s back to pranking you, it'd be worth it to be wary, and cautious _._

Peeking around the corner in the dark, with suspicion and paranoia flooding your mind, you look for anything out of place. The moonlight pools on the floor. There’s no body this time. Just open carpet with a faded stain in the moonlight. Bro must have tried to clean it up. You don’t see why he would. It would make the perfect backdrop for a slasher smuppet film even as the sight of it makes the bottom drop out of your stomach.

There’s a shadow on the couch. Not even trying to sleep

You haven’t made a sound. You _know_ you haven’t. But the shadow of the head tilted.

“What are you doing up?”

Weirdly the noise _calms_ you. If he’s deliberately calling attention to himself--

You force your arms to relax.

“I can ask the same thing, Bro.” Cal’s legs dangle, dragging against the floor as you step out of the hallway, and onto the carpeted living room floor, “It’s 4:13 in the morning and we were up at a godawful hour as it was.”

“I asked first.” His voice is oddly stilted. “I’m not mid-development cycle and needing 10-12 hours of sleep a night, like you do.”

Again. Again with the kid thing. You squeeze Cal’s arms, digging into the plush limbs, “I’m also not the one who has constant bags under his eyes.”

Silence. The shadow doesn’t shift. It’s absurdly motionless and it’s itching at you. How much of that is the darkness masking the micro-ticks you’ve gotten good at noticing and how much of that is actually his mood, you don’t know. You just don’t know and you’ve still got panic lingering in your system and you hate it.

“I was an idiot.” The admission came as a surprise, his voice a bit clearer now that he’s turned his head toward you. Most of the futon is understandably kept out of the path of the moonlight because that would be rather counter productive to _actually_ sleeping,  but some of the reflective light allows your adjusted eyes to make out shapes and edges, “Just made a monumentally stupid decision before trying to sleep, and now it’s a useless endeavor so what’s the point?” You see him shift. A head tilt? “What’s your excuse?”

...you hadn’t expected him to actually answer.

You swallow.

You decide to tell the truth.

“I had a nightmare.”

This isn’t a fight worth having. Not at 4:17 in the morning. When you’re tired and cranky and drained and...

A sigh.

“C’mon, kid. Get over here.”

You...aren’t sure exactly _why_ you do it, but something in the quiet command has you crossing the room. Rounding the edge of the futon, and hoisting yourself up onto it. You don’t do something so stupid as to _cuddle_ him, but you do put your back against the wooden arm of the futon, drawing your knees up. Lil’Cal ends up pushed against your chest, with your chin resting on his clay head, and you can feel Bro’s eyes on you as you sit, half in the moonlight, half not.

“Do you want to discuss it?”

You don’t. You really don’t.

“I just finally got to slay my dragon.” You let the silence linger and you imagine you can see his lips quirking, “Lemme tell you, it ain’t what it’s cracked up to be. No valor in that shit, just singed capes and burst eardrums, dragons are loud as shit. Throwing a tantrum like a fuckin’ baby who broke his toy because it stepped on it with its giant fuckin’ food--”

There’s a rumble from the other side of the futon and you realize he’s chuckling.

“You said 'got to'. It seems you succeeded.”

“I--” You pause. The realization hitting you like Lil’Cal’s plush fist of rage directly in your sternum, sending you through the air and tumbling until you managed to get your head back on straight. “I...guess I did. Huh. Dave Strider, bonefide dragon-slayer. That sounds pretty dope.”

“Indeed.”

Against your better judgement, you find you don’t really want to leave. Here on this lumpy old futon that smelled like bro, clinging to the dead-eyed puppet that-- _tormented you--_ startled you. But the moon is bright so you scootch out of your corner and closer to Bro, that quiet, immobile shadow, head tilted up and leaning back and staring at the ceiling.

The dregs of the nightmare hang over you like someone had sewn a bunch of weights into your pjs when you weren’t looking. The paranoia that had driven you out of the room seems almost...muted. Going as limp as the doll in your arms.

You’re...just tired.

He doesn’t say anything as you stay.

As the clock ticks forward.

As the moon dips behind the buildings.

As your head sinks.

As you end up curled into his side, Cal shoved between you both.

As his arm settles, hesitantly over your shoulder.

As you eventually fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> He DID want to fight that dragon...
> 
> Sorry it's a day late, but well, look at what day it is! Happy homestuck day!
> 
> Next chapter is Davepeta :3c
> 
> Sorry for not responding to the comments but I was really trying to get this done! I'll catch up this weekend :3


	45. Davepeta > Keep Yourself Together

You jerk awake, shooting up and up and--

_THUD._

The impact sends shudders through you, your head aching so bad from where you apparently _shoved_ it into a _wall_. You fall for a moment before you realize you can float. That’s how you ended up in this situation, a startled bird fleeing to the air only the fucking sky was a roof and probably a good mile of metal, rock, and meteoric regolith. You rub at your head, careful to curl your fingers to avoid digging claws into grey skin. Glaring upwards above crooked lenses, there's an honest to god impact crater in the once smooth surface, shaped uncomfortably like your head. Even little horn marks; you find yourself grateful for their solid, short stature because as much as you love Equius, you don’t think you’d want to mimic his Look.

The pathetic whine building up in your chest doesn’t go anywhere because of course it can’t, but you turn in the air and draw your wings around you like a feathery recuperacoon. Cutting you off from sight and surrounding you with black-green darkness, fighting against the swimming vision and pounding head and jolts of terrified _what the fuck_ s running through your brain. White strands caught in clawed fingers and you can feel the pressure against your scalp.

Pull yourself together. You can do this. Just because you had a _dream_ that couldn’t have been a dream because you’re _drenched_ in manic heart-shaped birdshit doesn’t mean you should literally fall apart. You’ve come too far to let something like this rattle you.

Something like…

Him.

Energy vibrates through your wings, crackling like a roving band of miniaturized lighting storms, drawing to mind a sudden onslaught and an instinctive summoning of power to _protect_. You could work with shields. But it’s exactly what you’d had use them to to stave off that had you feeling like you wanted to flip your pun-loving shit. Echoing laughter drudged itself out of the depths of your past, clawing up your spine and dragging with it a mountain of birdshit you were supposed to be _over_ with. Laughter that had dogged your every footstep unless you were time traveling or chilling in Rose's room because you couldn't bring yourself to stay in your own. Even that reprieve wasn’t enough because the nature of stable loops, and your aversion to unnecessarily dead daves, meant it wasn’t safe to constantly travel just to get an infuriating puppet-sprite off your back.

Your hands twitched, itching for the oddly familiar shape and weight of a sword that’d once broken in your hand. But all that did was pull out your claw-blades with a metallic _shing-k_ , pink blades glowing, glittering with that same magic that still clung to your feathers and left you nearly vibrating in mid-air. You’re dripping the shit like some sort of magical pinata, sending sparks falling all over the room before they fizzled out into nothingness. Dregs. Ashes of the power buzzing inside you.

You’re you. You’re still you. You gulp in air and block out the world and sink into the comforting spliced together web of your own soul, opening up that sense that allows you to hear the thrumming music. It’s just you. All of you. Both of you. Even if you’d gotten mixed up with him and and stirred around so much it was like a serving of dave soup, unable to tell where you ended and he began which wasn’t right because you aren’t _just Dave anymore_ \--

A bubble of orange and red, a complementary harmony. Together and blending but decided _not you._

Recoiling you bite down and fangs pierce skin and you taste blood. You’d forgotten about those. Stars glowing in the mosaic of pulsing beats of dark green and red and black, part of you and yet not.

The shards you’d accidentally picked up in the debris cloud. Bits and pieces that didn’t fit the template that got swept up into your wake and trapped like a body that passed too close to a star and up and got itself annexed without so much as a by your leave

You’re a _heart player_.

Of course something like this would happen. Of course your powers would fuck you over like this.

Okay. Shards. Gotta get rid of those. After what happened with Dirk you’d think you would have expected _something_ bad to have come from this. At least you only have to deal with shared nightmares and not like body snatching that would be awkward. Walking up to Dirk as a mini-Dave and finally getting your purr on--you want to laugh hysterically at the image but it comes out your useless throat as a faint wheeze. You draw in another shuddering breath. And then another. And then open your eyes. The music plays between your ears, thrumming in your chest, becoming less and less clear but never leaving you. You start by dismissing your claw-blades with a flex of your hand, peering out through the gaps in your recuperacoon of green-black feathers.

Your sudden flight had thrown shit everywhere. Blankets, couch cushions, stuffing, your carefully arranged nes--pile _destroyed_. Now that it’s scattered all over the floor you’re starting to question your reasoning when it came to bringing down the ones you’d partially shredded when trying to remove them from the couch because the force had managed to send the little balls of synthetic fluff interior all over the floor. You can’t help but making a face at the thought of cleaning it up, but even that leaves you wincing.

The magic has stopped flowing but you still feel like you’re humming when you finally set yourself back on solid ground, the ache in your head fading but not fast enough not at all. You suppose you should be glad you didn’t crack the damn thing open with that stunt.

You can barely see Dirk through your blurry vision, a splotch of maroon and white peeking out from beneath a cocoon of blankets and extra puppet felt (a gift from bro you weren’t gonna put that shit on your own pile no matter how comfy it was) you’d set up close to your own pile. At least you hadn’t buried him in your cast off debris of chiseled cushions and cushy as hell blankets. The jerk just snoozes away as if you hadn’t had the weirdest out of body experience you’ve ever had, and given you spent three years as a sprite in some weird half corporeal state, that’s saying something.

Your fingers itch, calling out your communicator from your sylladex--you still can’t get over having a sylladex again. You’d never expected to use one again after you gave Dave literally everything you had and ever worked for and backflipped off the handle of your own sword into seppucrowsprite not entire sure it would work but it didnt matter you were dead anyway--your pile is shot but you don’t want to be alone so you cross the room and curl up against the wall next to Dirk’s. Not in it--even with that simple acceptance of your intentions given over pesterchum you don’t think that’s a line you’re willing to cross yet. Not unless he’s here or in distress or--stop thinking about it. You’re here. You’re close. And if he’s asleep he’s asleep but you have so many thoughts and words piling up inside your thinkpan you need to let them out because--

dataJammer [DJ] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< holy shit bro   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i just had a nightmare   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and not like the holy shit im late for school and i forgot my homework and maybe also didnt realize theres a distinct br33ze around my posterior and everyone was yowling at moon as i stand and give a purresentation kind of nightmare  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< shit  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont know i was just curled in my pile staring at the ceiling thinking about pawsitively crucial plot developments for my dope webcomic and i just like must have just b33n so damn comfortable and warm my lizard brain kicked in and it was total zzzzzzzz up in here and like at first it was okay   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hella trippy but okay just this strange sort of floaty f33line that really shouldn’t be strange since like hello part bird not to mention former sprite floating was kinda the one thing we had going for us  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and there were clocks and shit everywhere and i could like hear them but i couldnt track them and they just got louder and louder and suddenly i was back on that hellhole of a planet where you  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< he  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< died   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and like sure i could s33 this being my subconscious finally getting its feathery ass kicked into gear and processing i dont know some of davesprites issues i gotta admit im purrobably long overdue for some full steam ahead breakdowns when it comes to that shit but  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< that laughter  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< that goddamn laughter  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i prototyped cal in my day did you know that???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< never  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and i mean never do that  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the dude was straight up wack constantly stalking me and driving me up the wall and like i threw in the towel and doomed myself early to get the fuck away from him and  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< fuck I dont know   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< trauma city  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it didnt look like cal but i know that laughter i know it fucking anywhere  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the dude got into my head but it wasnt just my head and it wasnt davepeta and it wasnt dave at least not yet  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ive never held caledfwlch dirk it broke as soon as i tried to pull it outta the fucking stone and then i took daves to the big man to get it upgraded but it was never whole and never mind but i knew exactly what it was when that welsh piece of shit fell into my hand and i just got so angry  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< so fucking angry because hell shorty is just a kid and doesnt deserve to get put through all the shit i had to go through  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or even what that the real dave had to go through  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< though i guess this dave gets to be the real dave now  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< alpha dave becomes beta dave and i get demoted off the scale what am i now gamma??? Or maybe me as davesprite was gamma and now davepeta me is delta or would it be the other way around fuck if i know i never did turn in my membership card maybe if we ever make it to some ultimate-self-meet-up well all get dorky little name tags or heck ill upgrade it to a teeshirt with our greek-letter indicator of relevance to the title of dave  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the point is he has a chance to be something better than we ever were  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< someone who hasnt been ground into the fucking ground and broken and stitched back together a million times and heres the personification of my worst nightmare shoving all that shit down shortys throat like it was i dont know candy or something  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont know dirk  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i mean cool i figured out stuff  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i can make shields with how much unadulterated hell no get out of my head i was f33ling and i can appawently end up punted into the dreams of other daves who really dont n33d me skulking around in there and knocking over stuff and leaving a mess id be the worst houseguest s33 a glass sitting right on the edge of the table and id stalk that prey so hard and catsually push it off while totally looking you in the eye because thats exactly the kind of douche id be  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i had nightmares about that fureakitten puppet all my life but it was never that bad  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< he hasnt had to go through some puppet related trauma recently has he???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< no surprise puppet ass from nowhere or cal battles since everything exploded yeah???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you purrobably woulda told me if somefang happened  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you 

You hesitate. You know what you want to say. And you expect him to say no. The same way Bro had refused to give up that thing no matter how much it killed you to see him holding it like a long lost friend. You’d asked. Of course you’d asked, remembering those months of clashing metal and wailing swords and ticking clocks and the constant hee hee hoo hoo hahs.

And he’d just looked at you, and looked at Cal, and looked away.

You’d had your answer.

You weren’t worth it.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you should put cal away   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont know how much he means to you but i do know how much he meant to bro  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< while a lot of this is a me thing it started as a dave thing first  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< better safe than sorry

  
There. It’s out there and there’s nothing to be done about it now. Maybe he’ll listen to you. Dirk was bro but he wasn’t Bro.

Maybe.

You thought you were over this shit. Memories of the Land of Hell and Purgatory bubble and pop like gasses rising through molten rock. That dead glassy eyed orange face on a bird-sprite body. Your body. It’s an image that leaves you shuddering, and you’re pretty sure if you’d eaten anything at all since you came back to life you’d be tossing chunks all over the floor right now.

You never really understood _why._

 _Why_ did Calsprite hate you?

Why did he dog your steps, even after you’d produced the amulet tying him to you and gave it to him? The dude straight up _haunted_ you like a creamsicle feathered poltergeist.

He never spoke a word to you. Only laughed and laughed and let your own insecurities fill in the blanks as to why.

Was it because you took him away from Bro?

Was it because you left Bro alone?

Was it because in 4 fucking months you’d never found him on your planet even though you searched and searched and finally concluded he’d gotten himself killed somehow or fucked off into the lava pits when you proved too incompetent to progress the game?

Fuck no the kid didn’t need to be anywhere near that shit. If your nightmares are leaching out of you like sand in a sieve you need-- you need--

To make sure this doesn’t happen again.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< think I need to do something  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ill be back dont go anywhere  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not that you can go anywhere being all asl33p furever and all but  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yeah  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< if you do wake up  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont leave?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i made you a hella rad pile  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the least you could do is enjoy it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and like if you wake up but dont wake wake up  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< check on the kid for me  
  
dataJammer [DJ] ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd decided to wait until Friday to post this, since there's another scene I wanted to do with Davepeta. But this just kept going and going and I really wanted to end it at the scene break because it feels like a ==>
> 
> Honestly you can blame [@caledfwlchthat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caledfwlchthat/pseuds/caledfwlchthat) for convincing me to go with my instinct and enabling me and therefore you get this three days earlier than otherwise intended!
> 
> Also thanks to Hyena (you know who you are :P) for some very lovely dives into Davepeta and their coping mechanisms and how this particular nightmare would affect them which helped me refine this chapter :3c
> 
> And since I'm just thanking people all over today, thank you everyone who's keeping up with this fic and reading, and double thank you to those of you who take time and brain and comment, every one means the world to me and I love seeing how you guys feel about particular...elements in these chapters :3c
> 
> Okay Kat just post the dang chapter and go to bed you're rambling too much right now
> 
> Next chapter will be Davepeta doing what Davepeta needs to do! That's already in progress so hopefully it'll be good to go Friday ^^


	46. Davepeta ==>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel the need to Clarify even though I'd hope it's obvious that this fic is not, or will ever, draw on the Epilogue or what it means re: characters or themes. Any themes or concepts shared (such as the ultimate self) are entirely coincidental and had already been planned before the release. Basically I'm not letting it change my understanding or plans for *this* story, even if that technically means it needs to veer away from "divergent, but as canon compliant as I can get it" to AU.

You aren’t particularly fond of Derse-- _ this was the best place ever _ . Sure, you and Rose used to have your rad little slumber parties and planning sessions in her room but the entire thing was tainted with the horror of realizing that they were  _ gone _ \-- _ you met him here first and you could run and laugh and fly and  _ **_live._ ** _ Oh and you guess you died here too the first time, that wasn’t fun. _

But you fixed it. You fixed it and they were fine-- _ and you were too somehow-- _ John lived, and Jade lived and Rose--

None of that. Not now. 

A black and maroon and white streak in the sky, you look upon Derse’s moon for what might as well be for the first time. Last time you’d been chasing Roxy, your perceptions of the world faded and blinking as you struggled to hold yourself together. You couldn’t have handled coming in at the speed you’re going now, slingshotting yourself around the small planet’s gravitational field to keep circling it, you probably would have fallen apart, looking for the chain and the hunk of tower-rock and the four spires plopped one facet after another.

For a moment you see not four, but one  _ more. _ A memory of a wild flight, laughing and spinning through the darkness of space, arms wide and purple nightgown trailing behind you as you dive in through the window of the furthest most tower in a righteous  _ pounce _ on the unsuspecting troll inside. You purr as he wakes, strong hands instinctively reaching for your neck because of course they do, it's an  _ attack  _ and that’s what you do with attacks. They may have considered you feral, but Pounce de Leon didn’t neglect any lessons in the art of pacification so you purr and shoosh and fall into his shocked arms and he catches you because of course he does, adorable broken teeth visible as his impassive face breaks and falls into a small o of surprise, dark eyes inching slowly towards blue opening to greet you--

And it fades. Five become Four and in the depths of your re-forged soul you miss him. Both of you do. All of you do. You just...do.

But you can’t. You can’t dwell. You’re here for a reason. You left Dirk for a reason, and it wasn’t to come all up in here and pale flirt with Equius’ ghost.

(-would they have even become ghosts?? You remember it vividly, the little bits of them left after the game tore the red sprite out of them. Blue and red and purple shreds breaking further and further apart before your eyes and sucked away with you to be thrown out with the trash. You couldn’t find them when you came back to yourself in a sea of stars and you’d  _ looked-) _

You’re near the towers now, you push Equius back, pulling on a very different layout of dreamers rather than the one who felt missing. Your--Dave’s session--only had two towers on your moon, but you met Dirk  _ there _ and thieved his dead body away from psycho-mom  _ there  _ so the two on the nearer facet  _ must _ be them.

You’re close enough you can feel him now, you think. The small bundle of orange and red bits and shreds of data and memory you’d picked up out beyond the Furthest Ring are shimmering within your web of self. You flew by the nearest tower, the closer you came to the second the louder they got.

You aren’t a stranger to Other Daves. You were the quintessential Other Dave. And even before that there were always Dead Daves. Daves were a dime a dozen in your experience.

After all, a Dave was still a Dave was always a Dave.

So why did it feel so monumental hovering here, outside that window, peering into the softly lit shadow of a very familiar room?

What are you doing?

Why are you even here?

Would this even mean  _ anything? _

A slippered foot touches down on the window sill, and you use your wings to steady yourself with gentle twitches as you shift away from the almost sprite-like ignorance of physics. 

You slip into the tower, and it’s almost like you were coming home, even if you haven’t been here in years. Your room--his room--Dave’s room spreads out before you as you settle into a crouch on the table under the window. Shit  _ flares _ to life as soon as you cross the threshold, the pounding music and lights and colors knifing through your already sore head. This was  _ nothing _ like the debris cloud where daveshards were scattered among thousands of others like orange and red and black sprinkles shaken and stirred up in a giant mega jar of other sprinkles. That had been diluted, easier to categorize and let sink to the back of your mind.

This was a concentrated cacophony of a madhouse blasting its music into your audio receptacle, like you always imagined only the  _ best _ raves and clubs would be. Overpowering and overwhelming enough to carry you away on the music and just dance and dance and dance. Like slipping your best set of headphones over your ears and pumping the tunes directly into your skull, sending it vibrating to the rhythm and immersing yourself into it because it let you block out the too-fucking-quiet rest of the apartment and Bro ironically never bothered trying to get the jump on you when you buried yourself in ill jams out of respect for the art form.

The song is deafening now, the harmonies flipping the entire score to take center stage. Colors shimmer like will-o-wisps, pink dripping from your wings, reds and oranges and blacks scattered throughout the room like someone took a nebula and squeezed it down into the size of a smaller-than-average bedroom that belonged in a downtown Houston apartment, not at the top of a tower on a random purple  _ moon  _ in some weird meta dimension that transcends time and space. They filled the air like smoke, covered the floor in shattered pulsing glass, smaller and somehow even more mangled pieces than the ones you’d witnessed in Roxy’s tower. In  _ her.  _

Something winds its way through the hundreds and thousands of slightly off notes, each one with small variations in style that hum throughout the room. Something subtle, discordant, and yet oh so familiar that it grabs you by the nape of your neck and  _ shakes _ you. You immediately glance to your right, to the bed, seeking out what  _ should _ be the sole occupant of this mindscape. 

Shorty’s awake. You can tell he is, since he’s, you know, sitting up. You’d expected him to be at his computer, blissfully pretending he wasn’t in different pajamas, or in a completely red room. That the night just blurred together because you couldn’t sleep so you’d shoot the breeze with randos in your chat rooms or work on a music project or draw…

But no, he’s sitting on the bed instead, knees pulled up to his chest, and arms folded on top. With his head a shock of white blonde hair mussed and messy splaying over his arms. He doesn’t so much as twitch in your direction. You’re nothing to him. A passing thought to be discarded. You’d ignored the shit out of your dreams despite being awake for years, why shouldn’t this mini version do the same?

Anyway, the rippling discord wasn’t coming from him, he hummed along surprisingly coherent for a mangled dreamself-god with the wrong glasses and mismatched pjs and only half the sweet cape you’re rocking.

If it wasn’t your obliviously ignorant tangentialself, nor was it one of the hundreds of, no thousands of shards that filled the room, that leaves one other option, sitting across the room propped up on the desk, across the sea of glittering, pulsing stars. As you focus in on him, the sound sharpens into a screeching of metal that claws its way behind your eyes, dredged up from the depths of your mind. 

Cal doesn’t glow, even as the garb of a dersite dreamer and red-cheeked clay face shimmers red in the light from the shards around it.. He doesn’t ping your senses at all. Nothing more than a black hole in the warping of the melodies around him, the disturbance creeping and seeping into the shimmering notes that litter the floor. Touching them. Changing them. Tweaking them just enough that if you had proper ears they’d be pinned back against your skull to match your bared teeth and soundless hiss.

Those familiar glassy eyes and that gap-toothed grin. A particularly compelling shiny you just  _ have _ to have. An unsuspecting squeakbeast. All you need is to swoop--pounce--grab--claw--and it’ll all be over.

Colors and sounds get caught up in your wake as you stalk through the room, it’s too densely seeded to avoid anything so you don’t bother, gathering on your face and garb and wings like unsubstantial dew drops. Broken dreams and shattered daves and flashes of fragments too small for you to even read because they’d been pulverized beyond recognition, all drip drip dripping through the physical barriers to pool around the pulsing stars already making themselves at home within your patchwork soul. 

This should bother you. The idea of even more dave, particularly This Dave--not even Shorty but shreds of the one who you’d doomed yourself for and who resented you and you’d resented back until you’d found freedom in realizing there was no freaking point,  _ Dave is a Dave is a Dave _ \--getting all tangled up in your web of self. But you can’t bring yourself to care. Shorty may not be your Monkey, but he’s Dirk’s Monkey, he’s the piece of the ultimate you who can finally be what you wish, and probably what every dave wished deep in the caverns of your broken heart before life and shitty circumstances smashed it to even smaller pieces than the ones that pulsed around you. 

Pink claws slide out of your gloves with a ring of metal and a click as the mechanism locks them into place.

The laughter bubbles in the back of your mind. You visualize that howling green dragon, and looking through them you see that same storm glittering in Lil’Cal’s eyes. As if you could reach  _ through _ it, across time and space and back to its very core.

You know the truth in the back of your mind. Dead is dead is dead, but frozen as it may be, that grin survived when everything else was torn apart. There’s a malevolence behind the laughter that stalks you. A rage that feels all too haunting and familiar that has the small feathers along your neck and back and collar quivering with unease and fear and…

Anger.

A wordless snarl, masks upon masks falling away to show the ugly beast-bird-troll-girl-boy at your core. A bundle of failures and regrets and hopes, a walking ghost of the dead and doomed-- _ no don’t it’s cal cal is all you have left of your bro you can’t get rid of him no matter how much you want to haha hee hee hoo hoo _ **_honk_ ** _ you watched him strangle equius you refused to watch him ruin someone else and that’s what spurs you to  _ **_act_ ** _ \-- _ sparking pink energy curls around your blades--three on each hand no don’t go for the face not this time, plunge both into the core and pull  _ out _ , rip him apart, shower the room with stuffing and severed limbs and throw them into the fire of the hellhole where  _ he _ died. Where you all but died.

Blades sink into nothing, the plush puppet body wisping and fading as you tear into it. Wings flap and flare, charged metal dragging against stone glancing off wood and scoring a long deep gash in the top of your--his--the desk. The warped music fades for a moment leaving you floundering, colors flashing behind your eyes as you turn to an increasing chorus of haha hee hee hoo hoo hahs. 

He’s back the way you came, so you lunge after him. It’s like the roof. Like all those strifes. When you’d see a shadow of Bro controlling the motions, except there is no Bro. Not Here. Just You and Cal and you dance, slashing and reaching, you’re much faster than you ever were before.

But never fast enough. You never catch up. Your sword--claws, three swords per hand are better than one--

The final laughing image fades out and you freeze. Because there’s something in front of you. Something beneath your claws. It pulses brightly where the puppet was a pit of nothingness, singing at you.

Where Dirk is mass of uneven razor sharp edges, and you are a weave of patched tapestries, Dave is a supernovae frozen mid-boom. Bright red around which the rest of this shit orbited. Stabbed right in the heart of the dying star is a shred of poisonous green that’s off, oh so off, surrounded by wisps of a remembered aura that tugged at-- _ purple blood dripping from three claw marks a strong grip dragging your wrist not even letting you own this revenge stealing it from you-- _

_ haha hee hee hoo hoo _ **_honk_ **

Laughter echoes in your ears as you stumble back, pink blades recoiling, white hairs floating free from where you’d just  _ missed _ and settling to the card suit-adorned bed sheets surrounding them.

Lil’Cal leers up at you from where he’s clutched in Dave’s arms, pressed up between his chest and knees. Daring you. Daring you to strike.

How.

How dare he.

Retracting your blades, you reach out to grab that cursed plush bastard by the neck and pull him free. You’ll shred him by hand. Using your short, but sharp as fuck troll-claws. How  _ dare _ he, using the kid as a shield--

And...he fades as you go to rip into plush leaving nothing but empty space and you suddenly  _ understand. _

He was  _ supposed _ to be here. You couldn’t even escape that laughter when you slept even as you left your sprite behind on LOHAC. You moved to Roses’ room whenever you dreamed, much to her annoyance, but you never told her why, just quipped about sleepovers. You never told her what was buried in yours--in Dave’s mind--

Literally apparently. You can’t even see mini-Dave anymore, only that bright shred of green where it should  _ not _ be. You itch to reach out for it. To yank it free. Fuck whatever massive, gaping hole it would leave behind.

The moment your clawtips even so much as  _ brush _ it, physically tangled with mangled jammies, the world shudders and you see red.

White hair shifts; rising from folded arms. Mirrored lenses slip free. Red eyes, unfocused and bleary stare up at you towering over him, clawed hands outstretched and in his face to grab the remnants of a fucking puppet that was  _ never there _ .

The memory of Calsprite’s laughter echoes through your skull. But this time…

A voice whispers from within poisonous green, you flinch and release and spin away, finding him across the room, lounging on the turntables.

_ There can only be one. _

He’s supposed to be there, and so he is, and you don’t think you can yank him out without  _ breaking _ something fucking important.

A flurry of feathers, and you’re gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, I actually finished this Friday. I just figured no one would really be interested with fic given the uh, release on Saturday. I was going to take longer, and build up a backlog, but then I realized *I* needed to solace of writing and reading fic after all that, so back to our regularly scheduled updates! 
> 
> Next chapter will ofc finally see Dirk and Davepeta having a non-asynchronus feelingsjam about their respective uh. Experiences. Including that one, there's two more chapters (both Dirk) until the time-skip (which may be a chapter composed of a series of pesterlogs. I haven't decided.) and then it's into the next major arc >:3 It will be rather Dirk heavy, but I think you guys'll appreciate why when we get there.
> 
> As always! Lemme know if you have questions ^^


	47. Dirk > Wake

It’s like coming up for air. You’re dragging yourself out of one of the pitfalls in the tombs on your planet. Not the easy way, just taking advantage of your second life as a dreamer and floating the fuck out of there, but the _hard_ _way_ , puny keratin finding purchase in the divots in stone brick and pulling yourself up inch by agonizing inch.

In the back of your mind you recognize this is just another simile; a construct you’d deliberately created in order to facilitate any sort of meaningful move back towards consciousness. Whatever sleep you managed after that hell of a night clings to you like the insubstantial but cough inducing conglomerations of dust and detris you still need to knock out of the crawlspace.

That place, with it's boxes upon boxes of shit you _don’t_ want to think about. Staring at your bottle of medicine thinking about the meeting you really don't _want_ to do. Thinking of dropping the bombshell that was tucked into a folder you left on your desk. The bottle unopened, sitting where you’d sat it down on the TV stand. Staring up at the shadows playing across the ceiling, the futon fitting into the you-shaped lumps in all the right places because apparently it’s been yours for at least 9 years or however long it’d been when Dave meteor’d into his--your life.

It’s fleeting, hard to track, but the shreds of memory bubble up anyway as you pull yourself further up and up and up, inch by aching inch. The darkness of the medium and the peace and quiet, the ability to step back across the veil and layer your perceptions to give you a moment of peace during the clusterfuck that was going to be tomorrow…

It’d been inviting. It’d been hella inviting and it had been a fuckin’ _mistake._

_Got your fingers stuck in the door, didn’t you?_

Snarled up in the threads and _pulling_. It's not like the usual _snap_ of the rubber band; these were an iron grip around your metaphorical lungs, clawed hands _digging_ and shit _cracking_ , and you’re yanked away and down. You _know_ in that moment that it isn’t trauma. It’s something and it’s malevolent and it’ _s hurting you and tearing you apart to make you what it wanted because you_ **_aren’t him_ ** _\--_

Even when you breach the lip of the metaphorical pit and your breathing hitches and you finally start to consciously draw in the air rather than leaving it to the subconscious respiratory sub-cycles, you don’t move. You don’t open your eyes. You just sit there-- _you’d fallen asleep sitting up--_ head leaning against the back of the futon at an angle that you can already feel will cause a crick in your neck as soon as you move it.

You just. Take the moment and breathe. Feeling your chest rise and fall, and using the time to scope out and take stock of every limb and physical weight tying you here, running goddamn gravity force calculations between you and the futon just because it’s something to do with your brain so you aren’t thinking about...

You’d dissociated _so hard_ . Like you were somewhere else, looking out, a being trapped in a prison of flesh, unmoored and _off_ , like when you’d first did your weird welding thing in front of Brain Ghost Hal, settling back in to this adult body and nothing felt like it _fit._ Like you’re simultaneously too big for this meatsuit, and yet it felt _baggy_ on you. Maybe it was slipping into your _real_ body for the first time in what felt like weeks, or maybe it was whatever the fuck happened that tore into you that threw you off so hard, or maybe it was--

Behind your eyelids you can still see the faint red cracks and you wonder if you’d fucked up and broke something again with that stunt.

Something shifts next to you, a weight at your side you hadn’t registered. Or maybe you had, and deemed it not-a-threat. You’re not startled at all though, oddly calm--exhaustively calm perhaps, all your panic left in those memories leaving you too tired to really muster up all that much more right now--you finally crack your eyes open against the dim light of early dawn filtering through the kitchen’s windows behind you, the angle low enough in the sky to throw long beams of light across the room and paint the television and walls in front of you.

The weight turns into a lump which further resolves into a head of white hair burrowed under your arm.

You should be surprised. You feel like you should flinch away in case Dave’s wakes up like this and spare him (and you) the embarrassment of needing to process the wee hours of the morning you barely fucking remember. The anxiety builds under your skin, but you muster up the resolve to keep it under control this time. Bits and pieces of disconnected knowledge intrude on your mental force calculations; previously noisy data points standing out from the rest of the background noise and linking up to form a semi-cohesive narrative. He’d had a nightmare. You probably did too, or your gameself would have, if it followed the same pattern as last time--but this wasn’t _like_ last time though. You could feel it in the ache in your head and your heart where sharp nails had dug in and squeezed and _cracked_.

You should contact Davepeta. Honestly, you probably already have a wall of text about it if you could just make it to the computer. Not for the first time you wish for your shades and the ability to open windows and chat without having to move more than a few eye twitches and some warming up of your well honed skill at internal monologuing. You’d be able check in with them right here, without disturbing Dave, maybe get their advice on how best to deal with this without either of you embarrassing yourselves.

Box that thought up, and slide it up into the crawlspace. Not going to use them as a living walkthrough, remember? No matter how efficient it was.

...maybe you should change your time-table a bit. Push up the production of that chat client for your phone.

Dave makes a strangled noise that draws you back from the edge of that tangent you’d almost taken a swan dive from.

Too-large hands or not, you’re used to working with small and delicate components and it’s not difficult to leverage that care to gently move the hair away from Dave’s forehead. It puts up a token resistance, matted with dried sweat, the boy’s face scrunched and uneasy, expressive in sleep in a way he tried to stifle during the waking hours. Another nightmare? Troubled dreams? You always assumed Dreamers dreamt like normal people until they woke up. It’s not like you would know.

He’s not clinging to you at least--means it should be easy enough to prop him up long enough to extract yourself from performing the function of a pillow. If you wanted to. You really should. There may be a smushed puppet between you, technically, but it’s still uncomfortable. And uncool. And makes you think of the roof. Either roof. Red sky or green. Only it’s not just you and Dave here. There’s a third wheel shoved awkwardly between you two, whose fate right now is apparently relegated to that of a teddy bear. Lil’Cal’s plush, stuffed body is caught in a vice grip, and whose eyes--if they weren’t the same glassy blue orbs and inanimate and _dead_ \--would be bulging right of his clay-faced skull with the amount of strangling force was going on right now. It should be funny. Why isn’t it funny?

The pain in your head spikes and you force yourself to look away, breaking your resting state of impassive neutrality with a wince and a surprisingly cold hand against your forehead. It’s not like anyone was here to see anyway, just Dave, and Cal and…

You really should get up. Sitting here thinking about shit isn’t going to put off the meeting you have in--your phone slides out of your sylladex and into your hand as you mumble the corresponding rhyme--five hours. You could layabout chasing your brain in circles like dog and then panic when Newt called to pick you up, or you could get up and go through your notes, check on Davepeta, and occupy yourself with _something_ so you at least _feel_ like you’ve prepared for shit.

It never seems like enough. You can be as confident as _Hal_ in a plan and it still has the possibility--the admittedly _infinitesimally small_ probability--of it going wrong. It’s always less certain when it involves people you _don’t know._ Or places you don’t know. Or--data. You just needed more data, that’s all. At least when it came to your friends you felt you could predict their reactions within an acceptable degree of error--

_Stop it, Dirk. Stop stalling and just move him._

Twist, and maneuver your arms under Dave to support him, and slide yourself out.

You hesitate, with the weight in your arms. Should you just leave him here or--

No. The certainty washes over you like a tired sigh. No, you should _not_ drop him like a hot potato and let him wake up on the futon. You should be the responsible adult _\--you’re only 16--_ and take him back to his room. He’s small enough still. You’ve carried Jane AND Roxy off at once when you had to, a dreamself’s disregard of physics aside; you can carry a child, you’re just being ridiculous.

You should…

But you don’t. And you’re disappointed in yourself for it, because it feels like you’re running away. You let him slump into the futon--arranging the landing position gently, no need for him to have a crick in the neck like you do--and grab the blanket you’d thrown into the corner several days ago because it was irritating your sunburn. It becomes a makeshift pillow that Dave latches onto almost immediately, releasing the limp and sorely abused Cal to flop off the futon and pool on the floor, face down.

Your inclination is to reach down, pick up the doll and set him back on the speaker. But something stops you. A feeling, a feeling that has the cracks in the world weeping with remembered malice. It was ludicrous. It’s just the anxiety bubbling under your skin. Whatever had happened last night felt like it had torn insulating foam away, leaving your nerves exposed to the air.

The hum of your computer whirring to life joins Dave’s quiet breathing as you wait for it to boot up. The folder stays closed on your desk as you balance the keyboard on your knees, pulling them up between your chest and the desk. It stares at you. Taunts you with what’s to come. But you’ll deal with that in a bit. You’re the _last_ person you’d expect to put your friends before your work, but that’s the point. You don’t want to just fall back into old habits. You’ve got to be _better_ than that.

The black and white shades blink onto the screen, and you keep your touch light as you input the password, careful to keep the clicking of each key far quieter than the mechanical keyboard had any right to be. It’s not like you _want_ to wake Dave.You can be considerate.

Maybe it would be more considerate to do something quieter, like go over your proposal, but there’s a little nagging feeling in the back of your mind that’s telling you that you probably have unread messages. If you still had your proper shades, it’d likely be an actual notification, but without them you’ll just have to make due with past experience and deduction.

timaeusTestified [TT] began pestering dataJammer [DJ]

dataJammer [DJ] is idle!

...and you were right.

You read over the...quite frankly frightening amount of backlog of green text. You’d expected them to be worried about you. To tell you about your dreamself having another nightmare. You’d expected teasing and threats to preen the fuck out of you, whatever than entailed. Not…

This.

Whatever this was. A slow descent into...something. Not madness, to quote the cliche, but a kettle, boiling over and whistling a warning that you’d missed by four fucking hours. Your eyes flicker away from the words scrawled across the screen, towards the puppet sprawled on the floor, staring up at you when you’re fairly certain he’d been eating carpet from his tumble out of Dave’s arms.

_you should put cal away_

timaeusTestified [TT]: Okay.

You chew on the rest of the pesterlog as you extract yourself from the desk, gingerly picking up the puppet even as the world cracks further. You feel...alienated looking down at the limp form in your hands, staring into those eyes, glassy and de--

No. They _aren’t_ dead, are they? Your raw nerves sing as _something_ flickers in those eyes, brushing up against the dull edges of yourself. The cracks spread. Green fire leaking through and flickering, overwhelming the red, bubbling up to claw at your vulnerable insides.

You feel sick. Why hadn’t you seen this?

_It isn’t empty anymore, is it?_

Remembering Caliborn’s words, from the rooftop all those months ago, you stare down at a clay-molded face that mirrors your oldest friend. Your guardian. Someone who felt familiar. That you could trust.

Familiar. Achingly familiar. Like you’re holding a piece of yourself in your hands.

But...no longer safe.

Not that any piece of you is ever safe.

timaeusTestified [TT]: I put him up in the crawlspace.

With distance, that dread is dulled, the green retreats, but it lingers, coiling in your gut. You aren’t sure if it’d just broken through last night and sunk its claws into you, or if it’s been here all along and you just didn’t have the mind to notice it.

dataJammer [DJ]  is idle!

You wait. You’ve caught them idle a few times in the past few days, but they generally respond right away. You suppose it’s about time for you to have a turn at leaving a freaking monologue, like two ships passing in the night, flashing their lights at each other in complicated patterns in order to simulate conversation.  
  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Dave’s asleep on the futon. I woke up with his head snuggled into my side like an oversized white cat. Almost thought he was you for a second, but he was a bit lacking in the troll-bird part of the equation.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I think he had a nightmare.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: That’s why you asked wasn’t it? To see if he actually shared it? It’d say it’s pretty damn likely.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I can’t think of another reason for the kid to fall asleep on me like that; it’s not like we’re overly touchy feely given all the baggage we’re dancing around here.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m not so sure if it would be Cal related though, I sort of remember him rambling about dragons; Besides, Dave was cuddled with the guy like he was like some sort of life preserver and the dude didn’t know how to swim.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: In the same vein, no, no puppet related trauma on my watch. I haven’t had the chance to use puppetkind techniques in ages. Cal is…  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I don’t know, honestly. Whatever the fuck happened last night has me all wound up and sensitive like someone scraped free all the industrial grade insulation around my heart bullshit-o-meter because something feels wrong about him.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: My Cal wasn’t...like this.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If this shit follows the pattern, then I had a nightmare too. I honestly don’t remember. It’s not a subject I’m particularly experienced with, aside from it resulting in explicable cases of anxiety.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Which I am still experiencing now, by the way, despite the fact that I’m fairly certain such an event would have happened hours ago.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: All three of us having nightmares the same night is too much of a coincidence.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Granted, mine was of my own making, rather than some potentially freaky juju magic.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Tell me if there’s a big gaping gash in my soul next time you look because it fuckin’ feels like there is and that shit’s annoying.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Are you okay? It’s been hours since you sent those messages  
  
dataJammer [DJ] is idle!

Hands rest on the keyboard with an exhaled breath, staring at row after row of orange text spanning far more than you’d perhaps meant to say. You’d been needling Davepeta for spending too much time in the meteor lab, fussing over your gameself like an overgrown hen, but this was far worse. At least there you’d known where they were. For them to go raring off like that...

If only you’d made that chat client. You'd asked yourself, what was the point in making a dumbed down version compatible with this generation of device when you _know_ smartphones are going to change the face of communication? Something you’re already putting into motion plans to exploit.

The _point_ was you could have fuckin’ known when Davepeta needed you. You could have set your phone to ping you. Even when you manage to sleep you doze light enough it wouldn’t even take much.

You consider the folder on your desk, and then shove it aside to give you more space to set your keyboard down, uncurling yourself from the hunched posture your body gravitated toward when you were relaxing. This wasn’t time for relaxation.

Chill, laser sharp focus settles around you as you crack your knuckles and set to your task. Delving deep into lines upon lines of code, into developers kits, into the infrastructure of modern day cell-phones themselves. Picking apart everything you can to find a way to sync up the two across devices without needing to contact the company itself. You’ve done this before--it’s not like the developers were around to _ask_ when you made it work in 2419--but it’s a little different now, no fancy sburb based tech from SkaiaNet or CrockerCorp which is weird as fuck because SkaiaNet exists in this universe, even if Jake’s Grandmother wasn’t around to found it…

You don’t even know how much time is passing. It doesn’t even matter. At some point you hear the rustle of cloth and the hitching of breath but you carefully keep your eyes glued on the computer screen, and your fingers typing, giving Dave the freedom and privacy to sneak out as if nothing happened. It's the least you could do, since you weren't able to take him back yourself. His movements are a ghost on the edge of your peripherary, and you lock eyes with him once as he's almost to the hallway and--then he's gone. He's gone and there's nothing for you except the code in front of you. There’s nothing on your phone, and nothing on pesterchum--

Until there is.

dataJammer [DJ] is no longer idle!

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im pawsitively purrfect you dont n33d to worry about me bro  
timaeusTestified [TT]: That’s highly unlikely given you were incommunicado for several hours.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Where are you?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< who was the one telling me to stretch my wings eh???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what if i just furgot to decaptchlogue my communicator???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what if i just n33ded to go for a flight to clear my head???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< just a trip around the ol’ rock  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or several trips  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< theres a lot of rocks out here to fly loop de loops around theres no n33d for me to fly all the way back to derse  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’d say I believe you, but that would be lying.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m going to conclude you did indeed go to Derse, or more specifically, to Dave’s dream room. Where Cal is.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< …  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Don’t ellipses at me, Davepeta.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I put him away.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...i saw  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not that it furreaking matters  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Davepeta?

You wait several minutes, but there’s nothing. You grit your teeth. Emotional shit wasn’t the easiest for you, but you _were_ trying.

timaeusTestified [TT]: If you’re serious about this relationship, need I remind you it’s a two way street?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Tell me.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i always told myself i loved cal because i loved bro and bro loved him  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but i can also say hes given me nightmares all my life  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hes always been there in the dream room  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< even once i woke up i couldnt just throw him out i just kicked myself out instead  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and i thought about that dream  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and about cal just sitting there in shortys room  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and i thought hey maybe i can stop him from going through what i did  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< kinda selfish i guess because like thanks to my stupid heart pawers i appawrently maintained some sort of connection to my ultimate self and i dont really want to go through it again through him  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< so i showed up claws out and ready to kick some puppet ass  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it ended up just like old times  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thats all there is to say on the matter  
timaeusTestified [TT]: That’s total horseshit, Davepeta. You always have more to say.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I want to help but I can’t fucking do anything other than listen. You need to talk to me.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Where are you? Are you still on Derse? Are you hurt?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hey fair no im the one who is closest to being litterally part maternal cluckbeast youre muscling in on my niche  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and im not sure where i am to be honest i bolted like a jackrabbit and its not like i can just call up a map with walkthrough magic anymore  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im not physically hurt no  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but i guess im pretty fucked up otherwise  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< got my feathered ass kicked by a smug manifestation of trauma thats lodged so d33p into my skull that even this quick and dirty recreation of paradox space insists the little shit has to be there  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< heres a cal and theres a cal and everywheres a lil cal  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you putting him away means squat if the universe decided to shove a piece of what-ever-the-fuck he is into my  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< his psyche  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< kid doesnt deserve that man  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i still cant believe you even listened to me btw  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Dude, why the fuck would you even doubt that? If you tell me the juju’s getting freaky I’m going to listen to you.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: This whole scenario is heavily based on your timeline, ergo you’d be more knowledgeable when it comes to the details. It’s downright stupid to brush off a reliable source of information, especially when it’s from someone whose judgement I respect.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< bro wouldnt fucking listen to me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont know  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you still had him so you obviously didnt think anyfang was wrong  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what the fuck is a juju  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Jujus are magical paradox spawning horseshit.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Look. I had…  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I wouldn’t call him a friend because he actually killed someone important to a very close friend and that’s all kinds of not cool.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: He knew a lot about fucked up shit like this. About jujus. About Cal even. How they are neverending and cursed and shit. Tried to get me to throw him off the roof once.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Maybe my head was full of actual cotton, or maybe I was just so distracted by being here and Dave and you…If I’d remembered that conversation sooner I would have...I don't know. Done something.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I don’t know if I could actually throw him away, but putting him in my strife deck or something would have kept him away from you or Dave.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: He’s still Cal. He’s familiar. He was the closest thing I had to a guardian. Losing him felt like a gaping hole punched in my gut that’s only recently been patched up.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: He’s a part of me.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: In some ways that makes me even more willing to be careful with things if someone starts giving it a side-eye and saying it smells like day old horseshit.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Parts of me aren’t pretty. I just don’t have a very good track record of noticing that until something goes pear shaped.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Isn’t that part of this whole <> business? Trusting you?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i guess  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its just after bro i  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< goddamn davesprite n33ded a proper diamond to call him on his birdshit didnt he  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< look i  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< n33d to think for a while okay  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im gonna try and figure out how to get back to the meteor now  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and check on that gash you mentioned beclaws if that happawned on my watch while i was too wrapped up in my own shit im gonna like pr33n the fuck out of you as you oh so elegantly put it until youre a furreaking puddle of goo on the floor  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and then were going to have a purrper f33lings jam about your nightmare because dont think im letting you turn this around on me like you said this is a two way str33t here  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you arent allowed to pull that stunt again without telling me  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Taking advantage of your unchecked access to my unconcious gameself, and my inability to stop you. How devious.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ill ask purrmission dont you worry  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< besides you know you like it B33  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Feelings. Joy.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< *dj wiggles their claws suggestivly* magic hands  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Stop.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< fine fine  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< take your medicine and get some sl33p  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< isnt it like befur dawn still  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...it’s nearly noon   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I have that meeting in less than an hour.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Sleep will not be on the agenda, I fear.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...shit did i get desynced??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< paradox space is furreaking weird  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< fine go be an adult and business the fuck out of those m33tings  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< well talk after okay?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I don’t think kicking the can down the curb will do anything more than just give us a reason to rehash all this shit again.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yeah but itll let me digest the fact that im not actually delusional and that puppet is actually a magical spawn of satan  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i saw some  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< purretty fucked up shit when I looked into his eyes  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it wasnt dave i found  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it was me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not just davesprite me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< christ its hard to explain  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< like equius and--  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont know if you met gamzee  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Fuckin’ weird clown juggalo?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I...don’t think we’ve met but I feel like we have. Shit’s all weird and fractured.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< stick murderous at the beginning and religious zealot at the end and yeah that’s about it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< everyfang about that dude is furreaking weird  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hes the one who killed me and my meowrail fyi we got major b33f  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< maybe cal doesnt give a shit and just picks at everything until its raw and thats part of the curse or whatever  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< a curse that picks at all your worst memeowries and encourages the worst pawssible bits of yourselves would fur sure explain what happened to bro  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I thought being an abusive asshole explained shit pretty well, personally.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hey  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< bro wasnt  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< fuck  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< he wasnt always bad  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< like sure he was always shit guardian but  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< looking back on it got weirder and weirder the closer we got to the end  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i always thought he was just upping the ante because i was ~ready~ or some birdshit  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but now that ive gotten a look at it with what i know now its like  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< how the fuck could anyone live with that and stay sane you know???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i only had to deal with cal for 13 years and i was purrmenantly scarred  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< bro had him for double that  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< might as well have b33n born with the dude  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and its all johns fault isnt it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< he gave me a furreakin pony and gave bro a mindfucking juju puppet  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...a pony. Really?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yeah he told me about it sometime during the nth retelling of John in SlimeBaby Land  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i think bro turned it into a bib or something i dunno what happened to it  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...shit Newt’s here.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I have to go.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: We aren’t finished.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< maybe not but this means that can was successfully kicked B33  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Consider the can retrieved and put back on the shelf until I get home.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< remember you purromised to tell me what your super secret purrject is once all this is over  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Get your ass home, Davepeta.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< <>  
  
dataJammer [DJ] ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whelp that was a long one. I'm oddly nervous about putting this out there...
> 
> As always, if you've got any questions or comments I'd love to answer them!


	48. Dirk > Be All Business

You don’t feel ready. Or even remotely prepared. But you’re here. You’re here and you are keeping it together. Because you are cool. You are cooler than an ocean breeze and you won’t let that fact change. It’s one thing to quietly freak the fuck out in the comfort of your own--even if sideways--home. 

But this was business. Numbers and shit. You might not know who the fuck these people are, and the idea of them  _ expecting _ things of you terrified you, but if you sit down and focus on the numbers you can cling to the exhausted calm that settled over you like a blanket this morning despite your realization and frankly chilling conversation with Davepeta. It’d been terrible timing getting that text when you felt like you were finally able to work through some shit, both theirs and yours, but what were you supposed to do? At least they were going home--and since when are you thinking of that lab as home? You barely remember it, lost in the haze of  _ gotta get back to dave _ , but…--at least you’ll know they’re safe, and that you can pick up that half-opened and kicked can of glassy eyed worms again when you’re both ready.

So here you are, across the table in a  _ coffee shop  _ of all things, from a frowning dark-skinned woman with cropped short hair, whose dark eyes bore into you as she taps long nails against her own set of books she’d brought along for the occasion. Newt was talking, going over the month’s view counts, and the steadily dropping trends and his work towards getting something called affiliates with other content creators. You think you get it but you don’t care, you don’t really, not beyond the fact that numbers were good and solid and patterns were something your brain could chew on without tripping over into crisis mode. 

Despite that, you can’t say you’re particularly  _ happy  _ talking and thinking about the future of Plush Rumps, even if Newt is taking a surprisingly amount of care to not mention the subject matter itself. The table you three had snagged was thankfully far in the back, a corner nook that most mid-day customers didn’t seem inclined to intrude upon unless they needed to use the restroom which was through a door just off to the side, an appropriate precaution when talking about a literal puppet pron empire in public.

This would have been a dream come true once. You’re sure of it. Shit, you’d  _ loved _ puppets as a kid. You still do. You remember letting your mind wander as you watched your bro’s iconic movie, The Stairs for the Nth time, imagining living during this era. Taking your passion and turning it into an enterprise, storming hollywood (in a way, the internet was  _ better,  _ more freedom to do whatever the fuck you wanted _ )  _ and making people  _ love  _ it.

And you have it now. Plush Rumps, even without you touching the thing since you arrived, still was raking in more money than you could even comprehend the buying power _for_ if Jane’s initial status report was correct. And that was _with_ _dwindling new viewer adoption rate_. The retention was still going strong. You could easily pick up the strings, make them dance, make some fuckers on the other side of the screen get turned on over phallic noses and promiscuous plush bottoms and just sit back and bask in how well they react to the buttons you press. You could fulfill that fantasy. You could be like your Bro. The undisputed, yet controversial King of media, even if his legacy was the ironically terrible yet revolutionary film, and yours would be the flipside, the underbelly, the secret shame lodged in hundreds of thousands of closets, constantly leading them back by the nose for one more plush rump...

Yet...the idea makes you feel nothing at all. Perhaps even the slightest bit nauseous.

When did that change? Was it Hal, giving you a taste of what exactly that felt like? Was it Cal? Waking from failed attempts to dream only to find anxiety crawling under your skin. Was it the fact that you were inheriting the fruits of someone else’s labor? Or was it just your own fault that you’d crashed and burned? You tried to pull that master puppeteer bullshit once, spinning plans and webs, accounting for every variable, tugging at your friends along the best paths for them. Sending Brobot to Jake to toughen him up--and really is that no different from another you on the roof, facing a too young boy?--running circles around Jane and building her a safety net she’d never need.

You think about the marionettes that once hung on the walls, the smuppets stashed in a corner, and Lil’Cal sitting in a box in the crawlspace where you throw all the junk you can’t bear to touch.

It’d all fallen to pieces around you eventually, the strings turning to ash in your hands. 

No. You couldn’t be another puppeteer. That fruit had rotted when it burned your relationships to the ground and left you with Hal’s life in your hands, and cracks in the glass, and the cold certainty that you were going to do it. You were going to kill him because he was a monster. 

Was that considered homicidal or suicidal ideation? You aren’t exactly sure how the term would be applied to a not-so-hypothetical brain clone of yourself.

And...Newt stopped talking, the part of your brain you’d tasked to paying attention noted, alerting the rest of the overactive swarm that hey, maybe you should  _ actually pay attention _ . 

“D-Dirk? Are you alright?”

It’s not just him, but she’d already been watching you so you aren’t sure it counts. You tilt your head, studying them back, Newt with that perpetually worried expression you’re starting to get used to over the smatterings of times you’ve met him and Jane with--you try to superimpose your Jane over her and it feels alien, like someone dumped a pound of sugar on something hot and it just melts into some sort of sticky sludge--fuck you can’t get a read on anything other than frustration? Why?

“Are you even paying attention?” She leans forward, elbows framing the binders full of notes and figures and reports she’d already presented to open the meeting. You’re being judged and you hate it. It makes you straighten out of your more relaxed slouch in the metal chair to meet her eyes. She’s all hard edges and a carefully calculated image, where your Jane was genuine and sweet. “If you’re that bored then why even bother showing up?” 

Newt winces.

“I’m not bored.” You really aren’t. Numbers and patterns were like candy. But like candy they just  _ can’t  _ occupy your full capacity right now. Perhaps in a darkened room, relaxed in front of your computer, feeling as safe as you ever could be, you could devote your entire attention to it. Definitely not now.  Not when you’re surrounded by people you don’t know, in a place you don’t know, with a topic of discussion that leaves you with a pit of dread pooling in your stomach. You’ve already segmented your attention between half a dozen different things, running on separate subroutines, and you  _ still _ find yourself flipping from one to the other trying to find purchase. “I was thinking.”

“Care to share?”

Even with your limited human contact, you know better than to admit exactly  _ how many _ things you’ve been considering in the last five minutes alone. You know how it hurt your friends when you only paid them half an ear, maybe not even that. That’s why you created AR, before he named himself and insisted on being his own person, rather than a facsimile to converse with you and your friends when you just  _ couldn’t _ \--not that he was ever really a facsimile. You know that--but what to say? There’s the truth and there’s the lie and it gets all mixed up because there’s probably history boiling under that barely concealed anger, and you fucking hate history. “It’s been a while since I’ve needed to...” You nod toward them. The table. Letting your uncovered eyes roam the restaurant. “deal with all this.”

“It’s been over three years since we’ve last met like this.” Her dark eyes narrow, leaving you for a moment to share a Look with an increasingly uncomfortable marketing agent, before Jane taps sharply on her notebooks, “But even the occasional cursory text message or chat was preferable than six months worth of silence. If it weren’t for the fact that the content kept uploading and the paychecks kept coming, I would’ve thought you’d’ve jumped off that building of yours by now.”

“Jane we talked about this--”

“So we did.” She’s not angry. Not in the sense you’d gotten from Jake once he’d finally boiled over and blown up at you. You can see steel flashing in that palm, and it simultaneously explains everything and baffles you. She  _ expects _ something from you. Something you’re not equipped to give. 

“He’s here now, and I told you what just happened, it isn’t the time to be--”

“This is  _ exactly _ the time to be bringing it up! So what, you managed to drag him back out by the scruff of the neck again, but how long is it going to last this time? He doesn’t need us--he never did, you just don’t want to admit it.”

You hate history. Especially when it’s not something you can just read up on. You push back from the table, the anxiety bubbling over into a roiling boil and it’s all you can do to stop your arms from shaking. You need… a moment, you think. The chair scrapes against the wooden floor with a screeching sound that draws both their eyes back to you, “Do you two need a minute to talk or what? I can go.” 

Hide in the bathroom maybe, you think somewhat distantly, the fragments of your attention keeping track of your surroundings keenly aware of the glances the raised voices and sudden motion had drawn to your sleepy little nook. The cafe was silent, but the barista is leaning against the counter in your direction and you find yourself wishing you were at home. In your chair. Typing in a shitty cross-timeline memo like civilized people, where you could just minimize the window for a moment if you needed to and none would be the wiser because for all they knew you’d had to go take a piss.

“Yes that’s a good idea--” Newt jumps on it first, nodding, but Jane wants none of it, shooting him a Look, that you can’t quite read but reeks of a familiar conflict, and his jaw clicks shut. 

“No.”

“Jane--”

“It’s my turn, Newt. I’m sorry.” 

She looks back to you.

Teeth grinding in your skull. The metaphorical spotlight burns hot against your unguarded skin. “What do you want me to say?” The core of the argument is clear. It’s as clear as fucking day, “I’m sorry?” For what? “For being a reclusive douchebag?”

“That’s a start, if insincere.” Her lips are a thin line, “But answer me honestly. Do you  _ actually _ care?”

“About _puppet porn?”_ The answer comes out as a strangled laugh, especially at the way Newt’s eyes bug at the fact that you actually _said_ it. In the middle of a public space where you are the fucking center of attention of all of four other people in this sad little store. You can see the assumptions building in their minds. A lover’s spat. A trumped up, dramatic inter-personal conflict and it gets derailed by something as dumb and contrived as _puppet porn???_ The wry part of your mind is amused as hell by the idea and you cling to it, asinine absurdity worthy of at least an opening short gag in your bro’s films. 

“It was  _ never _ about the puppet porn,” Her lips curl in distaste, and then, peculiarly, you see her check herself, clenched fists uncurling to lay flat against the binders in front of her, one hand over top the other. One deep, solid breath, and then those dark eyes are on you again, “I might even venture to say Plush Rumps was the worst thing to happen to this company, and not because of any damaged sensibilities related to the subject matter. The  _ money _ doesn’t even matter. We could all stop working tomorrow and be set for life.”

“What I want to know is do you even  _ care _ about the  _ team _ . About  _ us.  _ What matters is those  _ six months _ , Strider. Do you know how many emails I’ve sent in six months? Care to venture how many I’ve received? From you? Do you even  _ look _ at my projections? Do you even  _ need us? _ If not, why the hell should we stick around? I’m not your friend. I’m still here out of professional courtesy because you were a brilliant, eccentric bastard before you started turning yourself into a cave troll, but I’m reaching the end of my patience here.

“Just talk, Strider. Just sit back down and  _ talk.  _ Don’t check out. It is clear, things cannot stay as they have been. What do you plan to do going forward? _ ” _

_ Do you even want to? _

You don’t even know the woman, and you know what  _ she’s _ trying to say.

“I don’t fucking know, okay?!” It comes out harsher than you’d intended, and she sits back, satisfied in cracking you like an egg, watching that clear viscous liquid of your growing anxiety seeping out of a blank white shell. “I don’t know what I need. I don’t know what you need. None of this shit will--” 

_ Matter in three more years anyway. _

You close your eyes and suck in a strangled breath. The fabric of your splinterself’s stiff, collared shirt is nowhere near the right texture, but you pry your fingers free. That’s getting to be a goddamn habit isn’t it. 

Fuck.  _ Do  _ you care?

_ Should  _ you?

You don’t need them for this, but this business is as much  _ theirs _ as it is yours. You acknowledge that.  _ More _ so even. You literally just got here.

“I’m not going to pull that recluse bullshit again, for what it’s worth.” The words drip reluctantly, uncertainly. You’re trying to read her and you just can’t so you turn to Newt instead. He’s…

The weirdly anxious earnest hopeful look reminds you of being sprawled out on the couch, griping over sunburn and whether you deserved the kindness of strangers.

What the hell had your splinterself been  _ doing? _ Did he have to screw up everything that came into contact with a human being?

_ Like you would have done better.  _ To think otherwise would be lying to yourself. You did enough of that screwing up of your own in the last half a year. At least now you have a roadmap of what  _ not _ to do.

They are still waiting for you.

Fuck it.

The half-fancied escape plan gets demoted a couple priorities, but you don’t sit back down either. You reach out, pushing the folder you’d kept buried under your arms toward the center of the table, and flip it open.

Feel your diaphragm expand. 

Exhale.

“I want to develop a new product, independent of Plush Rumps. ” The words feel like pulling teeth, their attention is a weight dragging at your shoulders, but you stay standing. You agreed to this for a reason, and it’s not just because Newt said please. 

“Revenue is steady. The website will stay up and supported, but I don’t plan to make any further content in that area. In that folder is my proposal. Schematics, coding samples, specs, possible suppliers, estimated cost per unit, it’s all in there.”

Paper rustles. Newt got to it first. The dude’s been silent since Jane cut him off; it’s been unnerving to watch the guy squirm wanting to say shit and stopping himself. “...there’s no puppets.”

“No. There isn’t.” Your smile probably looks strange. Pained, derisive, and nostalgic all bundled up into one single unreadable microexpression. “Portable, wearable micro-computers, meant to be paired with cellular phones. When the apple drops from the tree in less than a year the market will be fucking ripe for the picking.”

“A fruit metaphor,” Newt snorts under his breath, flipping through another page, the nerves are bleeding out of him now that he’s got something to focus on other than interpersonal drama. You almost wonder if you’re similar that way. “I see you’ve been talking to your little brother.”

He asks questions. Papers get passed so Jane could read through them as well, and you kick yourself for not making two copies. You’d know there would be two people why the fuck weren’t you prepared. You’re feeling more and more uncomfortable as they swap sheets, talking to each other and to you, your answers growing shorter and terser until Newt wants to ask _that_ question of you. The one that started this whole mess in the first place.

The escape plan skyrockets up your internal priorities. 

“Just look it over. I’ll be back.”

Jane looks up from where she’s scrutinizing a schematic, jotting what looks to be material costs on a napkin laid out on her notebook stack, “Are you running away? Or moving forward?”

You feel your lips curl, but you just shrug and head towards the hallway leading toward the bathroom. A quiet place where you can just be alone for five minutes and just try to breathe.

“Fuck if I know.” You don’t know what possesses you to answer honestly, but you just shrug, “I figure it doesn’t matter as long as something is moving.”

You don’t know if she nods, or shakes her head, or what, but she doesn’t say another word.

The hallway isn’t very long, but it’s dimmer than the rest of the cafe. Mostly enclosed. You wrinkle your nose at the smell from outside the bathroom door and decide you don’t need to go that far. There’s a curtain of some kind hanging over the opening of this transient hallway between the back and the dining area. It’s just a thin fucking piece of cloth but it muffles the ambient noises from the patrons and acts as a good insulator. You just lean against the wall and close your eyes.

The cracks behind your eyelids are spider thin, but red, not green. After this morning, that’s fucking comforting.

You breathe.

Focus on the motion. Count them if you need to. You don’t need a panic attack. Not here. You can still feel the attention crawling all over your skin even if there’s no-one to see you right now. No-one except you and the shitty ghost in your own head, and it’s not like it could think any less of you. Keep it together. It’s just another step. A step towards feeling like yourself again, even if you feel like you’re drowning, holding your breath as you dive for it. 

A step towards keeping the promise you made to help Davepeta.

Jane’s the accountant. She probably could access the big accounts. And some of these components would be fucking  _ expensive _ to make. Newt had connections. Maybe you don’t  _ need _ them, but they sure would make things easier.

You’re doing the right thing, even if a small part of you is frowning at the idea of throwing away a perfectly profitable venture. But see? That’s why it’s for the best. Use it as passive income, and dedicate your time to figuring out how to replicate certain pieces of tech and--

“If you weren’t his friend, would you go for this?”

It takes you a moment to place it.

You can hear them. Faintly. Floating through the flimsy excuse for a barrier.

“We aren’t friends--”

“Please. Lie to my face again. This was never about the job for you, and you know it. You’re far too soft on him.”

“We’ve been  _ over _ this oh a hundred fucking times over the last ten years,” He’s tired. You could imagine him rubbing his temples, “We  _ aren’t _ . He made that clear.”

“Some people have trouble admitting to it. It does not make it untrue,” She offers, not unkindly. It’s also not incorrect, if you’re reading this whole situation right, “I’m not sorry for pushing him, but I do apologize for freezing you out like that. You do have history.”

The wood paneling of the wall is cool against your head and you slide down it, curling into a small crouch on the floor, pulling your knees to your chest. Your palms find your eyes and you press them down, hard, neon lights flashing behind closed lids, dancing in between the faintly glowing red that’s slowly becoming comforting. And seriously, how fucked up is it that you can look at a visual hallucination and go situation normal.

Breathe.

In for four. 

Hold. 

Out for seven.

“History? I guess. If you call being on the right bus at the right time, and not being able to leave well enough alone. 8 hours is a long time to sit next to a torn up kid and not start to care. You were right, anyway. I just... Has it really been that long since we’ve been here?”

In for four.

Hold.

“I was not exaggerating my count. I do believe the last time time we had a monthly meeting was in 2003.”

Out for seven.

“Christ…”

You just keep breathing. Counting. The silence is filled up with the distant mutterings of that bright dining room, just on the other side of a fabric curtain you could probably rip with your bare hands. There’s a whole ‘nother world beyond your bubble of breakdown central, one where people can talk to each other like they aren’t ‘cave trolls’ out of their depth and over their heads and drowning in it all. 

“Are you even reading this? That conceptual and technical skill is  _ wasted _ making puppet porn. It’s absurdly profitable, I’ll give you that, but this...”

“Right, sorry. Business. I forget you’re allergic to personal shit.”

In for four. You find yourself focusing on the voices again, pushing the rest away because at least you have a connection here. Weird and not entirely yours but it anchors you lest you drift off on the sea of nausea and anxiety. This morbid curiosity that causes you to latch onto the distant conversation because your brain is racing even as you work to calm yourself down. 

Who were these people you were supposed to know? 

“Not allergic, merely disciplined.” There’s a pause. Then. Hesitantly. A sigh. Papers being smoothed out on the table. “Okay. This is--we’re on break. Newt, please don’t think I _don’t care_ how you feel, but we’ve been through this same pattern before. Many times. Probably half a dozen times in the five years since you brought me into this project. Less than that even, since the two years since plush rump’s launch has been one big trail of silent automation and stagnation. That website is a work of freakish passion, and he can’t even be bothered to keep engaged with _that?_ You had to have seen it too; it’s your _job_ to look for and interpret patterns.”

In for four. It feels like there’s something hooked in your chest, buried deep beneath your sternum. Tugging and pulling and nudging like kitten claws. Trying to pry you out of your skin.

“He throws his all into a new idea, the intensity is downright infectious,” Hold. “And then when everything is done he just...bleeds away… Because it isn’t interesting anymore. He’s the idea guy. The engineer. Brilliant and capable and intense and...”

Out for seven. 

“Then he’s gone.”

Fuck this.

Fuck all of this.

You shouldn’t be hearing this. But you can’t pull yourself away because you  _ need _ to know.

This is a glimpse of the person you were supposed to be, and it’s like staring down into the black hole that shattered the world. And not just the one you’re left to live in, with it’s points and edges and secrets hiding around every naken plush rump.

“I always let him go, because I knew he wasn’t looking for a friend, and I didn’t want to push on that.” A pause, “I was… when I got that phone call, it made me realize that maybe I should have been one, regardless of what he wanted. I want to hope maybe things can be different, if we just try to...I don’t know. Hold on. Instead of letting go.”

“You are far more forgiving than I,” A sigh. You think you can feel her nails tapping on the table. You don’t know. But it sounds like it. Tap. Tap. Tap. “Maybe you are right. Maybe things will be different. But we can not keep saying maybe, Newt.”

“...are you going to quit then?”

“I--” A pause. Papers crinkle. “I really don’t know. I was ready to, but now...this...”

“The cycle continues?”

“Indeed. Despite it all, I find myself wanting to see where this goes.”

“I know right? I’d kill to know where he got some of this information. Apple doesn’t have any press announcements scheduled for several months yet, but these conclusions check out. Some of my tech contacts have been buzzing about something…”

And so, the rhythm eases back into the comfortable murmur of business and numbers and patterns and by the time the nausea settles, and you can breathe without shaking like a leaf, neither comment on how long you were gone. If they notice you’re subdued and thoughtful, aside from some more pursed lips and hard looks from Jane, and Newt’s perpetually deepening frown, they decide to leave it well enough alone since you answer their safe, work related inquiries without complaint.

Jane was right, and yet very wrong at the same time.

He didn’t need them. 

Not as business partners.

He’d needed them as  _ friends _ . 

Someone who cared, but wasn’t willing to call him on his bullshit.

Someone willing to call him on his bullshit, but tried her best not to care.

Christ, this was a right mess wasn’t it?

You look at them across the table, heads down and absorbed in your rudimentary market analysis, and feel something cold settle in your gut.

These were  _ people _ . 

And in three years?

They’ll be dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the missed week :c I had a lot of trouble with the second half of the chapter, and then was part of a wedding on saturday so like my writing ability kinda got fried for a bit there. I finally managed to finish it to a satisfactory level last night.
> 
> So, I know I said the timeskip would be next but--well, as you can see Dirk ended up with a bit of a philosophical conundrum on his hands, as well as a raincheck for a conversation with davepeta. So. There's now one more on our hands before the skip. XD
> 
> Hope you guys enjoy this peek into how other people perceived Bro, even if Dirk really is starting to dislike the idea of History. Dirk does Not Handle Confrontation well with people he Doesn't Know but aren't enemies either. Missing all the context and information is driving him bonkers. Poor kid doesn't know how to deal, and he's missing his security blanket right now too.


	49. Dirk > Divide

This will be your first rainstorm in this era. Even without the sensors you’d juryrigged onto the radio tower at the top of your apartment, you can tell. A wind leaden with not the scent of salt and ozone, but the sting of acid and smog blows through the metal struts of the structure, reaching you where you’d wedged this too-big body into the space you’d often liked to use to look out over the sea. The horizon is hazy and dark, buildings upon buildings glimmering like the stars reflected in the blue-black plane of your childhood.

The world holds its breath.

Maybe your bright expansive blue ocean and white gulls are gone, but something else took its place. That sea of light and metal and ever shifting and moving pieces. You’ve thought about it before, when walking those streets on what had once been a seafloor, trapped in the sights and sounds that assaulted you. A pulsing rhythm of lives and people and destinies all packed into a single space, orbiting around and tangled up with one another..

Background details--overwhelming as they are, foreign as they are, that’s all they _can_ be. The nurses in the hospital, the people on the streets, the people in the coffee shop--

They are just background details in a doomed world. They aren’t on your radar. They _can’t_ be on your radar. They can’t make you wonder about where they’ll be in three years when this cosmic simulation ends. There’s no other end to this scenario. Nothing but fire and flame and a dead world.

There’s nothing you can do about it.

Is there?

You like to consider yourself pragmatic. You have a goal. You have three years before shit hits the fan. Three years to figure out how save the session. Find out what it means for your friends. Make shit better for Dave.

You can’t afford to worry about it. About them.

About a starved and neglected friendship that doesn’t concern _you._

It...doesn’t.

You wonder if he’d recognized it. If that’s why he’d hired them. If it wasn’t just an excuse to delegate boring business decisions-- _you prided yourself too much on taking care of everything--_ but instead was an excuse to keep them close, even as he unconsciously built a brick wall between them. Terribly independent, because he couldn’t afford not to be. Wounded and hurting and wrapping himself in knives.

That photo tucked away in Cal’s trunk, _in the crawlspace,_ told a story.

_Tell her I’m dead._

You know him, just like you know yourself. If you’d _kept_ that photo, it meant something to you. It still did. You don’t just...get over shit. It scars you, and then you _can’t_ stop picking at it. Tearing the wound open again and again and again.

Sometimes you think back to the confident asshole you were before the game, and then look at the wreck you are now, and wonder what the hell happened.

Then you remember.

Jake happened.

He hurt you. He ran away. You were angry, but all you could think of was, _your fault._ You’d spent the last _weeks_ before everything went to hell eviscerating yourself over it. Alone in the tombs you’d explored with him, tearing yourself apart to see where you went wrong. Breaking off chunks of yourself and dragging them into the light and hating every bit of it.

But you were never alone. Not really. Hal obviously _helped_ you in your metaphorical mutilation. That was one of his functions. You resented it, growing to see the clinical distance he kept between you and your feelings as the end state you were terrified of. Growing detached. Seeing your friends as nothing more than another emotional obstacle worked into your plans. Or tools. Like when he would forcibly drag open your pesterchum windows, to the point where you considered smashing your shades against the English-green walls of your tomb, but blue and pink text always stopped you.

Maybe they were wielded with the precision of a surgical scalpel, but he was right. They were worried about you. They cared. And they dragged you back out.

 _He_ didn’t have that.

Not even a dark mirror onto whom he could project all those newly dredged up feelings of self loathing and recrimination.

_She hates my guts_

Would you have been willing to reach out again after that? Or would you have curled further in on yourself, showing sharp, indifferent spines to the world that would have even the people closest to you--who you _trusted your kid with--_ hesitating to even use the word _friend?_

Vibrations rumble through your fingers, snatching the bulk of your attention from where it’s been chasing itself around and around, caught in a never ending oroborus devouring itself. Digging desperate hands deep into the hypothetical mental space of someone twice your age, mixing it carelessly with your own toxic mess and synthesizing a cauldron full of acid that works to dissolve your insides--

This is dangerous. You haven’t moved since you came out here and you feel _exhausted._

You feel _old_.

Was getting old contagious?

You’re only sixteen for fucks sake, no matter what this body tried to tell you.

The vibrations were a notification. Your phone is cradled in your hands. A text message. Not exactly what you were looking for. You navigate the clunky menus--your hasty modifications making it even _more_ inconvenient than before. You itch to start on a prototype, on building something _better_ . But this is what you had to work with, for now, and it should work you just needed to _wait._

Where is Davepeta? You know how fast they can fly. You’d expected them back hours ago.

The worry bubbles and pops, joining the anxiety skittering like spiders through the chaos of your overactive brain. You derail it and try and shove it lower on the priorities list, before giving in and forcibly packing it and all that corrosive shit away into a box you know can’t contain it forever, but it should buy you some time until it eats through the walls. And the floor. And lands on your head.

You open up the message on your phone. It’s from Dave-- _expected--_ but after a small ramble about how you better not be dead on the roof again, he asked a question you didn’t expect.

_whats this shit on the counter for???_

Frowning, you thinking back to--oh. Yeah. That’s right. You did just drop the bag on the counter, didn’t you. That probably should have gone in the fridge. It’s been sitting out for hours now, forgotten and ignored between you throwing yourself back into your coding in your haste to get a workable prototype running, and then escaping to the roof when it got to be too much.

It’s probably still good. It’s not like behind the display case was refrigerated.

_A fruit tart. You like strawberries right?_

You don’t actually know that. Okay. You do. Sort of. Your Bro had liked them. You remember watching clips from the Tomorrow Night Show where he showed up in a ridiculous outfit in honor of his birthday with dyed mint green hair and a goddamn berry clipped to his head. The mad bastard didn’t acknowledge it at all. Not until midway through the show he casually popped the thing into his mouth and shrugged at the host’s sputtered shock, “Midnight snack, what can I say? I had the munchies.”

Man, your Bro could make _anything_ cool.

You don’t even have those clips anymore.

Did you save some on your shades?

You hope so.

_how am i supposed to know ive never had one before_

_It’s yours. I think you’ll like it._

_…_

_did newt send it home with you_

_Low blow, bro_.

It should sting to know how low his opinion is of you, but honestly, it’s the truth.

_I picked it out._

_right_

_you know baked sugary shit is like completely antithetical to the healthy bullshit that you stuffed in the cupboards yesterday_

_maybe i should eat it_

_fuck your baby carrots_

_You did at least take some with your dinner right?_

_…_

_yes mother i ate my fucking carrots_

_i got all bugs bunny up in here_

_all nyah whats up doc_

_crunchcrunchcrunch_

_i paid the veggie toll and it totally cramped the style of my mac and cheese i hope you appreciate the sacrifice_

_Just eat the goddamn tart, Dave._

The next vibration of your phone is a picture of the tart. With the perfectly coiffed arrangement of strawberries and whipped cream messily disrupted, and the berries rearranged to complement an artistic rendition of--you squint at it--probably a penis, knowing him. Your Bro had loved hiding phallic imagery in not so-hidden places in his films. The only reason you aren’t sure is because whipped cream doesn’t appear to be the most stable medium to draw in, the edges already falling to fill and blur the lines.

Truly a masterpiece.

He doesn’t respond further, so you let your attention wander away from the screen--though you still keep the plastic device at hand _just in case_. You transfer it to just your left, however, raking the right through your hair and ruffling the sweaty strands so they stop sticking to your skin, fluffing the damn thing up like a rooster again, but you’ve been hella slacking on your ‘do what with the single minded frenzy you’ve spent most of your day in.

A rumble of thunder in the distance, excited atoms transferring the bouncing soundwaves from the distant thunderhead to reverberate in your ears. It isn’t raining yet, but it will be. You can smell it mixing in with the acid stench that forces you to bite down a reflexive gag.

You should go inside.

It’s a sensible thought, but you don’t move. Even as the wind picks up and another roll of thunder bounces through the concrete and glass forest beneath and surrounding your perch. A glance at your phone indicates no further messages, but the white numbers of 9:53 stare up at you from the notification bar.

You really should go inside.

The closer the storm, the more charged the air gets. You like to think it’s almost sparking, sending shivers of anticipation across the patches of bare skin beneath your sleeves. It’s a strange balance between the oncoming storm and the fatigue that’s been weighing down on you all day, the cracks at the edge of your vision standing out starkly against the dark backdrop. There’s no light up here, aside from your phone. Lightning flashes in the distance, dancing above a series of shorter buildings that don’t block your view. Your building is one of the tallest around. It would have to be, considering all the rest had either rotted and collapsed away, or been covered completely by the ocean of the Batterwitch’s world. Your horizon had been a clean and wide and endless sea.

You slowly, painfully uncurl yourself, squirming your way into a position that allows you to slide out of the struts and into a crouch on the ground. You’re still not 100% yet. Maybe you need to start working out again. Get up before Dave does and pull some exercises. Maybe one day you’ll be able to ditch this body in favor of your own _properly_ sized one, but until then you needed to maintain it.

Drops of water splash onto your upturned face, a sudden sting, wet and only slightly cooler than the ambient temperature of too fucking hot.

You don’t want to go back inside. Because green bleeds into red and you...feel _something_ from the crawlspace upstairs. Something scratching at your insides. Trying to burst free.

You blink, and you’re standing in front of the box, light shining up from the kitchen downstairs. Cal’s glassy eyes bore into you, twinkling above a frozen smile and for the first time you can feel it clearly. Whatever presence is inside your first friend isn’t even bothering to be subtle anymore. It pushes at you. _Angry_ at you. You know what it wants. You can’t give it to him. You can’t.

He’s dead.

There’s nothing you can do to change that.

“No.”

Just.

No.

You close your eyes and the void surges up around you, banishing Lil’Cal to flip flop through nothingness, and reducing his presence, and yours, to both nothing and _everything_ at once. That awareness you’d been developing since you godtiered was dulled when embodied, but that didn’t seem to mean shit right now, wherever you are. You’re just a thought. A concept. Cocooned in threads suspended over the abyss. You’re fairly certain you don’t have eyes anymore, but you stare into it, finding the echoes of red flickering in the cracks running through the mirrored surface. Will you fall into them if you slipped out of this net? Will those jagged edges will cut you up and devour you?

Unlike staring into Cal’s baby blues; you don’t feel afraid.

A mirror only performs its function.

A perspective shift and you’re staring up, the core of yourself aches, bleeding, as the threads erupt from broken edges and outward, red tangling into blue and stretching out, out and away into the aether where the braid is devoured by this fiery mass of green heat and light and rage. Waiting. Watching. Lashing out, curling along the threads with tiny clawed chands, a gaping, fanged skeletal maw.

And yet, despite it all the licking flames can’t _quite_ reach you.

You’re trapped.

But.

You’re certain about it. You’re _safe._

Red glowing dimly in dark glass. Exhaustion trickling through. They shatter, and fall away, leaving you blinking in a more literal darkness, hair slicked to your face, water falling, eyes stinging in a way that makes you think you haven’t blinked in ages despites the droplets clinging to your eyelashes.

_It’s raining._

You’re standing on the roof. Not in the crawlspace. Not some black void in your brain where ghosts and every unwanted thought gets shoved. Wind is whipping around you. Your clothes are soaked.

You wipe your face, futily, smearing the rain along your skin. It’s been going on long enough for the roof to collect various pockets of water, the emergency light dimly glowing above the stairwell, causing them to glimmer in the cast off light. You’re a dark shadow in one, falling droplets sending ripples through the shadow staring up at you. It unnerves you, that shadow, still and silent and watching, and you can’t really explain why, the images from your weird as fuck daydream fading as the moments tick forward. You relegate what you can remember to certain subroutines, to discuss with Davepeta when--they return, but most of it slips between your mental fingers and you sniff.

Figures.

Just another weird experience you can only chalk up to your fucked up heart bullshit. It must be bad if you’re getting them despite being in what essentially amounts to a cotton-stuffed meat-sack. Whatever Cal’s been doing must be making shit worse. Minor visual hallucinations, the anxiety, hell even losing time wasn’t new. Not since you’d woken up on the roof to a world spiderwebbed with thin red cracks, but this was the first time you’d felt yourself entirely…

Fuck you don’t even know. You wish you could talk to Davepeta, although you don’t think they’d know either.

How long have you been out here?

The phone in your hand has droplets of water clinging to the screen. You smear them across the glass in a way that probably makes it even harder to read, but the light comes on when you hit the side button. Around 10:45.

Shit. That was a decent chunk of time.

You should dry off. Do your hair--it doesn’t matter it’ll be bed head in the next few hours, it’s the principle of the thing--and get back to work.

But while that thought nudges the back of your brain like the swatting of an exhausted kitten, you notice something. A new notification in the task bar, and the light on your phone blinking orange.

You don’t even let yourself process it before you’re navigating the broken menus and the slapdash interface and black text scrawls itself across the screen.

dataJammer [DJ]: mew know I havent the foggiest idea how long your m33ting was supposed to last  
dataJammer [DJ]: it looks like you left the window online though  
dataJammer [DJ]: didnt we talk about this???  
dataJammer [DJ]: close outta that shit unless you want sneaky little monkeys pawing through your darkest secrets  
dataJammer [DJ]: when the bros out the monkey pokes about   
dataJammer [DJ]: with the way hes b33n baiting you id expect a set of phallic imagery on your desktop any day now

Your hands are shaking. The keys are slick beneath your fingertips. Each press threatening to push the moisture deeper into the casing. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: Are you home?

The screen locks up for a hot minute. Longer than a minute. Maybe 5? 8? Shit you don’t know. You almost think your slap-dash, homebrewed, thrown together in less than 12 hours program bricked your phone, but then time-stamp glitches into some unholy mass of random pixels and then lines stumble in one after enough. It’s gotta be lagging. You need to see about troubleshooting the connection or figuring out if you can adapt a wi-fi receiver and then boost the signal.

dataJammer [DJ]: im fast but im not that fast bro  
dataJammer [DJ]: i told you im kinda lost

Another big droplet drips off of your lank ass hair and pools into a bead of water precariously trapped between your thumb and the plastic casing that you don’t actually know is waterproof. You really _really_ should also GET OUT OF THE RAIN. 

This shit isn’t actually your gear, modified to survive the humidity of living surrounded by (and once dropped _into)_ an ocean. You were just lucky the damn things were heavy enough to sink and not get swept away by a current. You couldn’t dive that deep even if you wanted to.

You don’t want to think about the ghostly images Hal showed you later, but you do. You can’t help it. Half the screen buried in sand, the low-light cameras shifting to sharpen spectral details of skeletal buildings looming around you. Tossed around as your makeshift weighted dredge disturbed the wasteland, collecting the thankfully wide frames and then the water lighting and lightening until--

He never mentioned it, but you wonder if maybe, in your hands, it wasn’t the first time he thought he was going to die.

Fuck why are you standing here in the rain thinking about that, _move._

The stairwell is only a flash step away-- _why the fuck didn’t you do this sooner? You know how to deal with electronics_ \--but you’ve at least got a roof over your head even if you don’t dare head away from the doorway. You don’t wanna risk losing the already terrible signal by heading deeper into that small dank hole under a flickering emergency light.

The screen glitches and dumps another set of rapid lines. Far too fast for Davepeta. They’d responded to you though, so it’s not like you were talking at messages left hours ago that were just delivered due to some weird signal mixup.

dataJammer [DJ]: not much out here for even the universes best hunter to use fur orientation  
dataJammer [DJ]: no planets no skaia not even any giant glubbing terrorbeasts to pinpoint which side of the furreakin galaxy im on  
dataJammer [DJ]: litterally the only thing I got is the faintest of blips on my dave o meter but those could be leading me into the middle of nowhere or straight back to derse

It’s still unbearably hot out, but you feel chilled as clammy fingers find the keys.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Derse would give you a landmark. Even finding the debris cloud would allow you to calculate the direction back to the center by studying the density of the shards. It’s a basic ballistic pattern. I can probably run the formulas from memory.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Another alternative is to just send you the program. Did we actually give you computing capabilities?

Time stretches onward, clawed talons dragging you along inch my inch. It’s lagging. It’s just lagging but it’s giving you time to think about your question. About the answer.

You don’t think so. Even if the communicator does have the capability to run the chat program you don’t think it would be able to receive and execute files. Your immediate reaction is to blame it on the materials you had available. You had to scavenge what you could figure out from unfamiliar technology, and then divine the right punchcard combination to combine with it to get something usable. But you know that’s just an excuse. You could have done better. You _should_ have done better. Given Davepeta something more versatile than the first-working-item you got.

You’d been in a rush. Sloppy. Brain tripping over itself in a haze of _roxy killed me_ and _what if she_ ** _killed me_** and _what if dave sees._

Overall you’ve just been too damn sloppy. You don’t have your autoresponder to double and triple check your shit anymore.

As if you ever listened anyway.

You pin that thought down under your thumb and stare at it like some rare species of bug that managed to crawl up from the sea. You might not have trusted him to not turn into a ruthless scheming son of a bitch, but you trusted the dude’s meticulous _need_ to be correct about everything. Especially when it came to proving your own work inadequate. You’re no stranger to irrational self debasement, but even you recognize when something is blatantly incorrect..

At that moment your phone flashes again, the abused device spitting out another handful of lines far too fast to be humanly (or trolly) typed. Reluctantly you let the thought scurry into the darkness of your mental crawlspace. Now wasn’t really the time to be digging into whatever underlying issue was causing _that._

It’s probably guilt anyway.

dataJammer [DJ]: nah brah the memeowry on this thing is smaller than a goldfish the moment i close out poof deleted even the logs are gone  
dataJammer [DJ]: i can purrobably sniff out the right direction furom either of those places so thats where im headed  
dataJammer [DJ]: shouldnt you be getting ready  
dataJammer [DJ]: puttin on bros least lame collared shirts and waist high pants and all dolled up for babys first business m333ting  
dataJammer [DJ]: dont let me k33p you furom your date B3c   
dataJammer [DJ]: fluff up that tail and go gettem tiger

What-- _ready_?

timaeusTestified [TT]: There must be time shit going on because that meeting was concluded several hours ago.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I sent you several messages after returning home. Didn’t you get them?

The minutes drag by.

dataJammer [DJ]: …  
dataJammer [DJ]: shit no but   
dataJammer [DJ]: it was only twenty furreaking minutes ago  
dataJammer [DJ]: i just happawned to glance down and s33 you still there and my ears perked up and i just  
dataJammer [DJ]: shit  
dataJammer [DJ]: several hours ago???  
dataJammer [DJ]: what time is it now.

You slide into a crouch on the second to the top step and nervously watch your signal drop from three bars to two from just that small amount of distance. You can escape the water entirely, but you can protect your equipment. You shift to put your back to the door and hunching over your phone to provide a makeshift break between the wind-driven sideways rain and your phone. Your clothes are already soaked. _You_ are soaked. The only comfort to be found is in the fact that you’re fairly certain your ectobiologically created meteor-baby body has some extra resistance to earth-level nasties.

You hope. Then again you would have expected the same for sunburns and look how _that_ ended up. You won’t forgive the universe if you end up sick after this.

timaeusTestified [TT]: The same day, but not for much longer. 11:17 pm. It’s been just under 12 hours.

It’s a familiar sight by now, the glitched out screen. You wait, drumming the fingers of your free hand against your knee. Thunder booms around you, the resulting shockwave sending sound vibrations shivering through the air, through your body, sending your teeth rattling in your skull. You think it sent the _building_ shaking, but you aren’t sure how much of that was just you. Fuck that was a close one. That once distant storm was right on top of you.

dataJammer [DJ]: i wish you were here i n33d a witness to tell me how dumb that squeak of surprise was  
dataJammer [DJ]: it didnt just get worse it jumped into the d33p end of the spacetime fuckery pool  
dataJammer [DJ]: you want to know the reason i bummed around the lab all day every day???  
dataJammer [DJ]: it was to avoid this   
dataJammer [DJ]: at least if i stayed close id be safe in your bubble of narrative continuity  
dataJammer [DJ]: but nope i had to fly off to stick my claw into the eye of the sun  
dataJammer [DJ]: at least there id be in dave’s bubble but nooooo  
dataJammer [DJ]: end up in the middle of who knows where with my anchor cut and drifting like im being dragged further out to sea by some current and i cant even hear time anymore much less try and  _fix it_

The sun. The green fiery mass of teeth and fangs and--

You grit your teeth and shove it away.

timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m gathering from that diatribe that you think the malleability of your personal timeline is due to a lack of connections to a player.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: We’re talking right now aren’t we? Wouldn’t that stabilize your place in my perception of time?

Except. Shit was lagging. It isn’t stable. The time between messages even appears to be growing. You haven’t necessarily been counting them down, but that last batch took a lot longer to send than the previous ones.

dataJammer [DJ]: fuck if i know i would have thought our talk this morning would have managed that if that was the case  
dataJammer [DJ]: jades grandpa saved john during our session did you know that  
dataJammer [DJ]: yet hes b33n dead and stuffed for years   
dataJammer [DJ]: we had ecto babies existing in the same period of time and space as ourselves a la the ectodaddy john eggstraordinaire  
dataJammer [DJ]: theres no set tempurral framework here just what narrative continuity we bring to it ya dig???  
dataJammer [DJ]: especially once ya get outside the players sphere of influence and into raw paradox space  
dataJammer [DJ]: you have a timefeline on earth its like an ongoing narrative that locks your gameself into it  
dataJammer [DJ]: i had you  
dataJammer [DJ]: i dont even have you anymore

timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m right here.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m here freezing my ass off in soaking clothes because I don’t want to lose you by having the signal blip out while i flash down the stairs.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I can stay here all damn night until my battery dies if it’ll help you come home.

You’re shaking. Because you realize you mean it.

Sucking in a breath you start typing out--fuck your mind blanks. Something. No don’t do that. You have eyes, you’ve noticed the pattern. One input, one output. If you word indulge in a word vomit that’ll make this package take all that much longer to get there. Or…

You don’t know. You wonder if Hal could have tracked the variances and found a more precise pattern. One you could use to estimate the periods of lag--something. Something other than just waiting here, digging your hooked hands so deep into the fabric of your clothes you're surprised it hasn't torn by now. 

Curled up in the stairwell, you listen to the rain, the thunder, feel the tapping of your fingers against the damp fabric of your pants. Waiting. Watching the signal flicker again as the cadence of the rain changes. You wonder if it's actually the rain or the thunder or the clouds or just being encased in the thick concrete tomb that is the stairwell--even the tech you had grown up with was still from several years in the future so you could extrapolate but you don't know it's limits.

Time drags you forward and you let it. Through the rain and the steadily dropping battery percentage. Waiting. Because what if it’s just the lag? You said you’d wait.

The stream tugs you down river, phone clenched in your hands so you’ll feel the vibration should another package arrives. Cal’s there. You can feel him, just below you. Waiting. Banished from his place of honor in your home. He’s been angrily clawing for purchase all night. It’s nowhere near as clear as it was earlier, when your powers...flared or whatever that vaguely remembered experience was, but it’s there. And as you drift you wonder about him. He’s cursed. You know that. But what was he doing? What did he want?

Why was he so _angry_ at you?

Because you weren’t the one he want--

The light in the formerly dim stairwell brightens, snapping you out of your own head. You stiffen. Looking up from your phone you can stare down the steep flight to the landing. The door’s open, the light from your apartment adding to the flicker of the emergency light.

“Bro?”

Dave’s only half out the doorway. He didn’t have his shades but you can’t see the red of his eyes from here, squinting up at you in the comparative darkness.

“It’s 3 am bro, please. Go the fuck to sleep already.”

You glance to him, then down at his juice. If he’s up this late…

“Another nightmare?”

He thinks he stifled it, but you see the flinch. It travels through his full body.

“Since when do I have a bedtime, _bro_ ? A dude has a right to a late night every now and then.” You can hear the huff, fingers curling around the golden juice and blocking some of its pass-through glow from view, “I told you I better not find you dead on the roof again, and with how goddamn bedraggled you look I’m the odds are increasing. How long have you been _out_ here anyway?”

You pause. And look down, fiddling with your phone as if it’s the most important thing in the world, and it’s not actually you confirming that it IS that late and holy fuck that means you’ve been out here for at least 5 hours.

But even that revelation doesn’t last because you notice something else.

dataJammer[DJ] ceased pestering timaeusTestified

Disconnected.

Was it the signal?

Was it your program made of spit and spaghetti and memory leaks?

Or, had your moment of synchronicity passed, like two ships.

With two lights.

Drifting just out of reach one stormy night.

## > END OF ACT 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huzzah! *flops* It's on time. I swear. And an utter beast. It's like. 5k words? This chapter has a bit of everything haha. Except perhaps Rose.
> 
> I rethought the act placement, and figured before the time skip would make more sense for the end of act 1. That's still going on as planned. :3c I hope it isn't as long as this one oof!
> 
> Don't worry about Davepeta either! They'll be back before too long! This bit is mostly introducing the concept of timeline drift when unanchored, as well as giving a nice narrative framing for the next chapter, which I suppose you'll probably see next week! 
> 
> As always thank everyone so much for wandering through and sticking with me <3


	50. [I1] Time ==>

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get settled in--there's a reason this took a month to write.

# Interlude 1

dataJammer [DJ] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< B33< even though it took litteral minutes for me to get the connection open again im purretty sure it was long enough to drift  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i hope to frog that you didnt stay up all night for me beclaws i can tell its purrobably past dawn  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im almost afraid to ask how long its b33n this time  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Welcome back.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I think it’s prudent to not worry about the drift. Stressing over the passage of time on my end takes up the precious bytes of data we have between us at this very moment.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Your side of things is the important part. The incipisphere is only so big; unless you ended up out past the furthest ring, which I doubt. The debris cloud is pretty memorable.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If I remember your ramble on temporal mechanics correctly, if you were near Prospit you’d likely stabilize in the influence of the Prospitian dreamers and we could make a plan without fear of the connection timing out.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: A continuous data connection might prevent the initial drift that causes the lost data and the eventual lag and loss--but that’s a thought for another time since we’re obviously drifting in and out of contact.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: At most you have a seven hour flight. At the least…  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Well, given how fucking dark it is, you probably won’t be able to see the veil coming until you’re almost right on top of it. Once you hit Derse, it’s just a matter of getting you anchored in the Dreamers sphere. From there...well at that point you’re pretty much home free and we can see if an active connection is enough to keep you anchored. If only I had way to remote into my shades to access the maps, and maybe put a tracker on your signal or…  
timaeusTestified [TT]: AR could have done it, but I find my access limited without the ability to physically access the device. After the last attempt, making a try for my gameself would be unwise.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I don’t need another chunk torn out of me. Metaphorically anyway.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< did you like  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< take notes or somefang on what you wanted to say next time i was online???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i mean dont get me wrong i appurreciate the info anything to make me f33l less like an ant swamped in some horrifyingly huge uncaring shifting pot of cosmic paradoxical soup despite my appawrent ability to fly at sp33ds even musclebeast would envy  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but that felt a bit too prepurred to be natural ya dig???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I might have run the math ahead of time, yes. I need breaks between work and my favorite distraction isn’t often available anymore. I don’t believe you’ve been gettin’ my offline messages properly.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< doth mine furry and totally perked up ears deceive me???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< did you just call me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< your favorite??? B33  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Your ears aren’t any more furry than mine. Do trolls even have body hair? Besides, you’re reading this. If you’re gonna perk something, perk your eyeballs.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Of course you’re my favorite.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Distraction.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< <>  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< *dj purrs all contented like they were just pat right betw33n the ears* ill take it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im not sure it matters because im mostly some weird mutt anyway   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< all i know is feathers furreaking suck okay  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ive b33n noticing my neck itching something fierce so it might have been too early to celebrate the loss of my birdsprite scarf  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< would you still love me if i had feathers???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...Davepeta. You have _wings._ I promise any additional plumage would not change my opinion of you.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< point taken  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< being tempurrally independent sucks  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< can i climb back in the nest  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ch33p ch33p this baby chick got kicked out to fly and took one look at the big wide empty world and wants to crawl back into their comfy pile  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Let me know when you get home. I’ll have a new blanket for you to add to it.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< okay dirk this is my serious face im even holding myself back from twisting this shit into a mess of puns  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< how long have i been gone???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dirk?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< we never did have that talk  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the cans still sitting on the shelf  
timaeusTestified [TT]: When you get home, Davepeta. I’m keeping notes, remember.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I would rather not get into that bombshell when anything we discuss is threatening to be dropped out in the unbearably hot sun to stink up the place for weeks.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< WEEKS  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Let me reiterate: don’t worry about it.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Maybe I’m greedy, but I’d rather use the time we have on either just shooting the shit or getting you home.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< who are you and what did you do with my broirail  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hed never say mushy stuff like that  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Shut up. I missed you.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...i miss you too.  
  
x-x-x 

A young boy hovers in the doorway to an open room, shades down to protect the sensitive red eyes, mirrored lenses reflecting the sunlight streaming in from the windows on the kitchen-side of the apartment. The adjacent side is draped in a soft shadow, blinds pulled down upon the narrow window towering over the only other occupant. Despite the bright and, most importantly, HOT state of mid-day--a state that pierces the interior confines of the apartment by sweltering the temperature from tolerable to _oh god_ _why--_ the uncannily bare walls resound with a peculiar noise. It’s soft, vibrating in a chest slumped over the desk in the corner, head buried in a set of crossed arms, keyboard pushed out of the way haphazardly, threatening to fall off the edge. Pages scatter across the floor where a precariously placed pile had come toppling down some undetermined time ago.

The screen isn’t asleep. This state of affairs developed recently enough--if the boy squints, an orange window that looks suspiciously like pesterchum can be seen flashing beneath the glare from the window. This is a familiar sight by now, one so familiar that he can’t find a reason to be angry about it. He’s old enough to know and understand what a hypocrite is, and it’s not like he’s been able to escape the on-again-off-again bouts of insomnia that seem to infect them both. Thoughts of dragons, and reoccuring dreams nip at the heels of sock covered feet as they make the familiar trek to the kitchen. Dragons and a fumbled sword and the frantic, but far too distant beating of wings. There’s something missing, but he can never exactly put a finger on it, even as more and more post-dream bird doodles fill the garage box underneath his desk.

He’s getting pretty good at drawing birds. People still suck though, but that’s alright. It’s part of the charm.

Day by day, a familiar scene: Bro hunched over the computer. Bro passed out on the futon. No more vanishing acts because he’s always working himself to sleep.

The boy has mired himself in a manic state of worry and exasperation for so long that, eventually, something has cracked into exhausted apathy.

Dave Strider _stops._ He grounds himself in the steady ticking of the moment and moves along the stream at a steady pace, letting it carry him from his room, to the kitchen, grabbing a handful of crunchy orange sticks, retreating back into his sanctuary with Bro none the wiser because he’s never going to admit that he likes the things.

His room is sweltering, even with the window wide open to the occasional breeze, trying to keep the air from getting so stuffy that he can't breathe. The AC is either broken or ineffective against the summer gathering its dying strength and smashing it down on the city like a giant glowing fist. He desperately wants a fan. He’d marched out of this very room moments ago after having gathered enough courage to ask Bro if they could get one but… Again, Bro’s passed out.

But he can deal. He’ll have to.

Movement catches his attention. He stops and stares. A shadow with beady eyes and folded wings and an intelligent stare. She--she looks like a she, he decides--perches on the edge of his monitor, wings ruffling and feathers puffing as he carefully, deliberately crosses the room.

He’s seen the crows on the roof before. But they never came near. Especially not with the clang of metal ringing out, considering what used to go on up there.

He slides the carrots into a pile next to the mouse for easy snackage. She snaps one of the lighter ones off the top of the pile and takes wing, escaping back out the window.

Black feathers flutter to the desk. He picks the largest one up and rubs the shaft between his fingers.

Watching it twirl is oddly comforting.

He starts leaving the window open more often after that.

She comes back to visit.

He has popcorn ready for her next time.

x-x-x

dataJammer [DJ] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< okay im just not going to ask this time  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< still no sign of derse  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or even the planets  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< do they spawn in when the players do???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< man there goes my daydreams of doing a nostalgic flyby of my personal sweaty scr33chy lava filled hellhole  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< talk about one boring pregame how did you and jade ever find things to do for years upon years before the game???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< man i n33d to talk to jade  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i never did ask how she got her paws on my battle ravaged sburb copies  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...bro?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you must be afk  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< with the window open again  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< man this blows  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< even though i want to rag on you for this appawlling lack of care toward data securikitty im not gonna complain when it means i can bask on the sun dappled windowsill that is being in the same furreaking timefeline  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the more time i spend locked in your metafurical gravity the less time therell be betw33n us  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i hope  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i know you said not to waste the data but  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i guess theres plenty of data to waste right now and i n33d to k33p this connection open so look out that light at the end of this block of text just is an oncoming trains worth of sincere f33f33s  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im worried  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i know im drifting in some sort of sideways stream to you and dave  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but every now and then i get this intense stab of fear and urgency and then theres this spark  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it barely lasts a moment but then its gone  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its so distant i thought meowybe it was just my nerves they are still purretty mangled from my catastrophic example of a breakdown earlier  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< is he still dreaming?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont think i was able to tell you  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< not purroperly anyway  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< theres like  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< this piece of him  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< a furreaking shard  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< lodged d33p in daves heart  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< makes me wonder if hes in mine too???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or im just getting overflow from dave  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont know  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i want to rip it out  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< break that shit to tiny pieces  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< bat it around like a feather and pounce and grind it into dust beneath my claws  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but it was dangerous enough getting you to rip the sprite outta me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and cal can retaliate  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< he was playing with me in the dream room bro  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< leading me on a wild hunt and then thumbing his nonexistant nose at me when he hid behind dave  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< like the cluckbeast is doing now  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thats nothing like mindless sprite code and the games automated protocols  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the last thing we n33d is for him to dig in and resist all the while shredding dave to bits in the process  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< as you can tell ive b33n thinking about this a lot  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< why did whatever malevolent entity that exists within that fucking doll survive even in _pieces_  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< when there were so many people  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< who didn’t?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< they fell apart right in front of me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< there was nothing left  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its just not fair  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< …  
  


x-x-x

A young man sits alone at his computer. Dirk Strider has his head in his hands, fingers threaded between messy strands of hair. The keyboard is pushed out of the way, with papers spread out across the particle wood surface, some balled up and tossed on the floor, others placed and rearranged in patterns intended to prompt associations. There is something missing in the design; components taken for granted in a post-alien invasion technological bubble, specifically in the area of neural interfaces. Without English’s Skaianet tech, recreating the work around he’s had in mind is nearly impossible. At least not without requiring an exact map of the intended recipient’s brain to essentially create a learning, predictive algorithm; and that is a big Hell No.

For the commercial version of the product, that isn’t a set back at all. Wearable computing can be controlled through voice or via a small handset--perhaps even the upcoming iPhone in the next year if he codes an application for it. He’s already completed and delivered the basic schematics for both control schema during August’s business meeting, and they were good enough for the wider population. Like with introducing AI, the idea is just too much work to be worth releasing the brains-to-shades tech on the world, even if he could get it working without committing the biggest ethical fuck up he’d ever even considered doing.

Short of the whole, ‘unwittingly taking over someone else's’ identity’ schtick. But it wasn’t like he had a choice in that.

For two sets, he can’t just use that shortcut. He needs to do it right. Davepeta _can’t_ speak, and Dirk doesn’t want to, _needs_ to remove the barrier between his racing thoughts and the words he can never quite reach. Relating to those cases, this state of affairs is a monumental setback. One that has been eroding the quiet, steady confidence that he _can_ do this. There is a whole _branch_ of technology sitting here underdeveloped, and he has no way to know how to _start_ it.

He’d been born into a different time. A different starting location. 

Crockercorp had managed it. Jane’s brain-hijacking tiaratop was proof of that. He can’t count on that because in this recreation there’s no signs of her presence. Betty Crocker and her advanced troll technology had been behind Crockercorp’s expansion from a simple bakery to a global power.

Without Crockercorp, who was supposed to have developed the game then?

The thought occurs to him in the midst of crumpling up and abandoning another non-solution. He stops and turns it over, the image of a white and green spirograph bearing disk bubbling to mind. Following that index back to where it should be leads to a dead end dust in the crawlspace. He’s left standing in that mental space looking out over boxes upon boxes of shit he doesn’t want to think about right now as his thoughts drift to each in turn, reading the associations like a scanner reads the space between a barcode.

Cal. Davepeta. The nightmares. That ache in his soul that dims but never fades, only to flare up each night before he manages to find some sort of respite by burying himself deep into those cracks. A million other things that end up compartmentalized and tucked away, only to surface when he least wishes to process them.

But one thing is certain; he’d never used those disks. Roxy had liberated the program executables for all of his friends, minus Jane herself. Perhaps he’d seen it at her house?

He shelves the thought for later, but it keeps turning as time keep churning, and he can never fully divest himself from that problem and punt it into the crawlspace where it belongs.

The keyboard is dragged back to the center, a hunched body uncurling just enough to peck at the keys. Click. Click. Click. In the years living above the endless ocean, he had gotten good at trawling the remains of the planetary net and sifting through digitally preserved historical documents.

He _needs_ Skaianet.

He skims back through his mental archives, the purposeful imaginings taking the shape of hundreds upon thousands of files flying past his mental fingertips at breakneck speeds, the checking and reindexing going smoother and quicker as more and more of his attention is diverting toward it and the clicking of keys slow.

He remembers Jake’s Skulltop. Jake describing the device had been the catalyst toward Dirk initially exploring the application of brain-to-shades technology. _That_ would have been created in the relative present time, correct? Perhaps years beforehand, and not necessarily reliant on future or troll based tech. Dirk cannot find the recollection of the initial origin of the device, whether Jade English had been responsible, or if it’d been Jake’s own invention. While he’d been undeniably flighty; it had been in part his scientific leanings and exuberance toward invention that’d initially drawn a lonely engineer into the dazzling gravity well of one Jake English.

No… Harley, now.

That thought that keeps shifting and churning and _prodding_ whispers quietly...

...Why _wouldn’t_ there be Skaianet? If _Jake_ founded it. He’d read those fucking words in his biography. It just hadn’t _mattered_ then.

The scratch didn’t _change_ anything. Just flipped it horizontally. Like a mirror.

His brother was a media giant. Dave’s brother is-was an underground multimedia sensation.Two sides of a funhouse mirror.

Jade English and Jake Harley.

Just because the company isn’t in the business of _distributing_ tech, doesn’t meant it won’t have a hand in developing it. English needed to stand up against the Batterwitch. To visibly throw out a bastion of human ingenuity and technological prowess in order to undermine the awe and power Crocker Corp flashed like stacks of cash, dazzling and buying humanity’s minds and hearts.

In a world without Betty Crocker…or at least the Alien Fish Dictator version of her...

They only need to prepare for the end of this world. It’s Dirk’s own logic biting him in the ass. Why bother sharing any of their research with a world they know is doomed?

Click. Clack. Clackity clack. Clack.

x-x-x

dataJammer [DJ] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yo bro you there this time???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Yeah. Sorry. The last convergence caught me while I was asleep.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: (yes I am pulling up my notes)  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Don’t worry about data privacy, it...isn’t open on my computer.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: When I’m not calculating the size of the incipisphere, or working, I’ve been stabilizing and expanding that mobile application. As long as it hasn’t been attacked by electricity sucking vampires sneaking out of the shadows to prey on innocent circuit boards, I should be consistently connected now. Of course that constant pinging prevents the idle sensor from being tripped but--if it helps, it helps. Maybe I’ll code an away message next time.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: You’re right. Whatever shit happened is still going on. I don’t want to say I’m growing used to it, but at least I’m certain Cal can’t go after me unless I...let him? It’s hard to explain.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I know it’s bothering Dave, he _is_ still having nightmares, but I can’t just throw him out. If he was real enough to be splintered like all the actual players then he’s more plot relevant than I ever expected. I wish I could get a good look at the both of them with my powers, but apparently they are currently manifesting as ambient hallucinations so that’s an additional iron to juggle.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Dave won’t talk to me about it, but several times I’ve woken up to find him curled up next to me on the futon.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If he’s had that shard buried in there since shit went live, why are they only starting _now?_ _  
_ dataJammer [DJ]: B33< shit yeah if hes approaching you like that its bad  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< as for why meow  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i couldnt tell you dude  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< that puppet is one package of paradoxical fuck yous shoved in the middle of my life  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i thought i was done with that shit when i buried bro  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< youre right i dont really want to deal with this  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its still really raw for me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you never did tell me what you were working on  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< *dj lands on the pantry shelf with a graceful af leap and knocks a completely separate can from the shelf to distract from the wriggling worms lying half split on the floor*  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its a can of beans in case you missed the metaphor  
timaeusTestified [TT]: ...Christ, don’t you get started on the beans too.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you know spilling the beans  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< give me the d33ts  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the juicy details  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< should i ask what dave started with the beans? B33c  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’ll tell you about the project if you cease the bean-based line of inquiry immediately.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< deal  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m working on a set of “rad mind reading shades” for you.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: and for myself; but mostly for you.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< B00  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i thought you said you wouldnt risk it???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you know duplicating and trapping another pseudo ai to the tortures of non corporeal existence  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I won’t.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: My set was created using neural mapping from my brain, and therefore required Hal’s creation as a base. That’s why I couldn’t just use the alchemeter to duplicate them for you. But, even pre-fish apocalypse, my world had working neural interfaces. It’s essentially several decades ahead of the technology this version has available, without English’s technological arms race, but I’m optimistic I have a lead.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dude thats like totally rad  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its too furreaking bad jades grandpa kicked the bucket  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< he built this cool robot version of her that like  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< did shit while she slept  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i tricked her into punching herself awake once  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it was hissterical  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< total brain reading shit right there  
timaeusTestified [TT]: That just reaffirms my conviction that I’m on the right track.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Skaianet might be more private in this iteration, but that just means I need to go straight to the source.

x-x-x

A young boy peeks into the fridge, secure in the concealment given to him by the click clack clacking of the keyboard. The plan is to swipe the final bottle of apple juice and then vamoose, but the automatic illumination of the interior lighting reveals something startling enough to make him pause. There’s a whole new packet of baby carrots carefully placed next to a brand spankin’ new _case_ of AJ.

One month, sixteen days and counting since The Promise, and he still finds himself startling over the fridge being stocked. Especially when it’s because _his things_ were the only ones running low. Even when those things are specifically _not_ things Dave would admit to eating. Or liking. In any way. If ever asked--Bro would never ask but a cool kid needs to be prepared--he just feeds the carrots to the birds. It’s really more of a turning a blind eye while the crows think they’re being sneaky thieves.

He likes the crows. The big female is the only one brave enough to venture into his room directly, although Dave is starting to recognize a couple of the jostling black bodies on the open windowsill as if daring each other to just go in already. They do take the carrots from his hand though, which is pretty dope.

The idea of Bro seeing that lack of something as mundane as _carrots_ and making a trip to the store just for that…

Dave doesn’t know how to feel. He can remember the relieved deflation of the body as the door closed behind Bro, the muttered _finally_. The sigh as his tall body crumpled onto the futon and stayed there for a good few minutes before he’d even bothered to put the food away, left in piles of bags on the kitchen counter. Bro hates leaving, even as a new habit is born whenever he does.

A short, innocent text. A way of checking in.

_Going to the store, want anything?_

_Meeting today, back in a few hours._

_I’m making sandwiches, want one?_

_Going up to the roof, if you need me._

An offered hand.

_Would you like to come with?_

Dave turned them down. Always. Huddling in his blankets if the buzzing noise happened to startle him awake, or refusing to surface from the music deep if he’s already up. An ostrich with its head buried in the sand.

That first time?

It had to have been a fluke. Immediately afterwards Bro’d thrown himself into _something,_ and that single daytime excursion and movie felt like a distant fever dream. It might have been. That’s when the nightmares started, wasn’t it? They settled over the apartment like a malaise. A big green dragon-shaped elephant tiptoeing in the corner.

Dave almost wishes he’d kept the plastic wrapping of that lollipop, if only as childish proof that it _happened._

Rose thinks he should say agree to go again, next time. Every time there’s a next time. And she won’t let him forget that he should say ‘yes.’ He _enjoyed_ what happened. Sort of. It was weird and domestic and awkward but…

He _can’t._

Even when he chances to stick a particularly stealthy big toe out of the hallway, nine times out of ten it’s greeted by one of two things: Soft snoring, or furiously focused key clacks. There’s no inbetween.

Dave always feels on edge, looking at that metaphorical outstretched hand dripping in tired suspicion. If he’s going to walk into the den of a suburban ninja samurai he wants to do it on his own terms. And if those terms are 3 A.M. in the morning after an anxiety fueled nightmare, silently crawling onto the edge of the futon next to Bro, wishing for the plush puppet to squeeze, then so be it.

Bro’d always been awake for those, even as Dave tried to be stealthy by sneaking down the hallways on stalking kitten paws, but he never managed to be quiet enough. Bro was _always_ up. Waiting. Sometimes nervous and jittery. Sometimes...quiet. Staring at the ceiling. Every time, Dave felt the weight those eyes.

Lil’ Cal is still missing. A gaping absence. One which Bro wouldn’t explain beyond a simple shrug and a quiet, “Put ‘im away.” In a way, it’s a relief, but at the same time the dude is a part of the family. In the moments where the will wavers and masks crack, Dave finds himself reaching for the familiar plush body. He is left wanting.

In those moments, Bro doesn’t say much. He only raises his arm. Not in the way you raise an arm to ask a question, but in the way you raise an arm to initiate a hug.

Not a hand, held up to show the marks of his sword skill still burned into them despite the ongoing disuse, but…

Just an arm, opening up the warm space at his side. It’s the right size. A space for Dave, if he wants it.

Nine times out of ten, the response would be a long crawl back to the bedroom, cold bottle in tow, to stare up at the ceiling for hours, pausing only to answer the only other person who’s up.

Rose is _always_ up.

Poor sleep hygiene must be contagious.

That last time, the time he’d caved, neither occupant of the cramped apartment would acknowledge it in the morning.

Dave allows the fridge door to settle into its frame behind him, giving it an absent shove in order to make sure it sticks. The glass container is cold in his palms. It’s been there long enough to settle at the perfectly refreshing temperature of fuck if he knows the number but he can feel it, which means the trip probably happened this morning. There’s probably an exact time-stamp in the litany of unanswered text messages, if he bothers to look it up.

He doesn’t bother.

Dave almost makes it out before he realizes there’s a distinct lack of _either_ of the two noises that like to fill this room.

“Hey lil’ bro.”

He’s tensed up before he gets an attempt to force himself to relax. He’s not been caught doing _diddly squat._ The juice is _his._ It always is. He doesn’t touch his bro’s orange crush, and Bro would buy him juice. Sometimes. When he deserves it. Which is apparently all the time now???

Dave decidedly _doesn’t_ captchalogue the juice with all the speed of a kid with their hand caught in the cookie jar.

It’s very nonchalant.

Really.

“Yo.”

When nothing more follows the now mutual acknowledgement, there’s a faint creak and roll as the wheels of the computer chair struggle against the short carpet fibers. Bro straightens, joints making a disturbing _pop_ and the _hiss_ of exhaled air as he practically uncurls himself from where he’s been hunched over like an overgrown gargoyle. The eyes fit, glowing like embers lodged in his face where the light is leaking in from the drawn blinds behind him.

“Did you grab anything to eat?”

That sounds vaguely ominous.

Dave’s hand twitches, the first motion toward being ready to draw from his swordkind specibus, but he catches himself, burying his tight fists into his pockets instead.

Bro _promised_. Didn’t he? No more traps. No more strifes.

“Nah. Thought about it--” No, he didn’t. It might be dinner time but he’s been sleeping late. Lack of sleep plus lack of structured mornings is playing hell with his appetite, “But decided I’m not diggin’ mac ‘n cheese right now. I’ll call the gremlin in like an hour or something, see if it’s grumbling. Might be in the mood for some good ol’ PB&A, by which I mean apple slices smothered in peanut butter. John’s allergic to peanuts, can you imagine the poor guy? Robbed of the heavenly combination that is PB&A…”

Nonsense words neither of them really want to talk about, but it allows Dave an out from under that burning gaze. He wishes he had something to hide behind, from them. Maybe he should give Bro back his shades? It’d leave Dave open and exposed but at least it’d mitigate some of that unconscious intensity and how much it’s _focusing on him--_

But no, that wouldn’t really work would it? Bro hadn’t been wearing them for days before Dave managed to fling his own specially sized set against a _wall._ No takebacks. He hates feeling vulnerable. These ones are too big for his face but fuck if that’s not all the better to hide behind.

“I’m making fish tonight. You should have some. It’s healthier than all that shit you’ve been eating.”

“You eat that shit too, Bro. I can’t believe you are dissing the mac and cheese. Isn’t it radioactively orange enough that it pings your serotonin centers? Where have you been learning all this blasphemy? Mid-life crisis’ live mom blog?”

The muttered “not all of them” has Dave choking back a laugh, but he pushes forward anyway. Because if he’s spewing out words he’s not freaking out. Or he can pretend he’s not. Which one really depended on how honest he was feeling with himself that day. “Besides, we had a deal--I’ll eat some of your gross veggies, and you let me stuff my face with a bowl of ramen if I feel like it.”

“The deal was that I wouldn’t dictate your dining habits, not that I couldn’t disapprove of your choices.” A frown. “If you don’t like what I buy you could always leave me a list. You don’t seem inclined to cook most of the shit I buy.”

“Oh okay, I’ll get right on that. We got chicken flavor, and beef flavor, and I think I’m running low on shrimp... _”_ He’d waited when filling that card. Waited for his bro to stop him. But Bro didn’t, and now Dave has had a stash that’ll last for _months_ more yet squirrelled away in his closet. There’d been so much shit that he’d needed to commandeer one of the cupboards in the kitchen. It, ramen, was the first and only thing Bro’d taught him how to make after he’d gotten old enough to understand how the microwave worked. Even his peanut butter and bread was something he’d seen Bro eat once so he copied it. “Shit bro, I can barely reach the microwave without needing to stand on a box, you think I’m going to even _try_ the stove? That shit’s got open flames! _Especially_ after what happened when I was six??? I still have scars!” 

Too small. Too young. Too loud. Too much crying as a six year old cradled his arm, where he’d leaned too far over on his tiptoes to try and reach the knobs and then lost his balance and fell. Hard. Before Bro swapped out packet ramen for cup ramen and taught him he was too old to cry. It wasn’t cool to cry.

Bro is silent. The inner fire goes out and Dave feels numb. So numb. He can feel his hands starting to twitch. Trembling, in his pocket. That’s good. They can’t be seen there. They can’t--

“Here.” One moment Bro’s in his chair, the next Dave is all tensed up because there’s a hand on his shoulder. Dave expects the claw-like fingers to dig into fabric and hoist him off the ground, carry him away like Dorothy.

But it doesn’t. It’s firm. Insistent. But he doesn’t...grab.

Dave blanchs.

Like a glitching tape, his mind stutters.

The next thing he’s aware of, his internal clock is 3 minutes fast, and he’s sitting on the futon. A controller is being pressed into his hands.

“I’ll cook, okay? Just play some Mad Snackz while I prep it.”

“‘m not hungry.” Fingers are so tight around the body of the controller, he half wonders if it’s going to break. “I’d much rather have some fucking doritos than be eating Nemo. Wait. Nemo is orange. They’re _both_ orange. But I don’t _want_ to eat Nemo. He’s the underdog.”

There’s an expressive sigh and an eye roll that weirds him out worse than how goddamn gentle Bro’s hands are right now as they drift lighty down to pat his shoulder and then withdraw out of his field of vision. Dave snaps his head around and flings out the words that are knotting themselves up in his chest, following the thread from his previously ridiculous statements and dunking them off the deep end, “WE BETTER BE EATING DORY!”

Bro’s head pops up from where it’s been buried in the fridge, eyebrows furrowing as he tries to parse the words that just came out of Dave’s mouth, muttering, “What the fuck is a dory?”

Dave gets a new highscore on his favorite level by the time Bro plonks a steaming hot chunk of fish into his lap.

It’s good.

Dave will never admit it.

It’s not like it means anything, if he eats a little less ramen, and a little more whatever the fuck Bro decides to make. It’d be a waste to leave the food on the nonexistent table.

It’s not like it means anything if Bro surprises him with a bootlegged copy of Finding Nemo the next time it’s fish dinner. That they watch it together.

It’s not like it means anything that Dave will happily remember the strange look on Bro’s face when the blue fish first introduces herself. How he glances down at the remnants of fish juices on his plate, and then up at Dave. Whose expression is a shy too smug to be innocent.

It’s not like it means anything at all.

x-x-x

dataJammer [DJ] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< this is getting annoying  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< my timestamps dont even work so i dont know how long for but  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i lost you for a while there  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< sup  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It seems you’ve regained connection at a time in which DS is either asleep or otherwise indisposed. This is a temporary away message intended to acknowledge that fact and offer greetings and offer some food for thought to get you through these trying times without his presence. Please stand by for the current set of notes to be delivered sporadically over the next period of idle response time, each interval expressly calculated for maximum entertainment efficiency and maintenance of the connection.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< oh god you did it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< that is beautifully pretentious  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ten outta ten would die again  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< of laughter and other suitably awkward f33lings because you acatually furreaking did it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< oh thissle be good  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< tell me dear away meowssage  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what fun tidbits did dirk see fit to save for lil ol me???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Point One: What the fuck is a Dory?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dory???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< finding nemo dory???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< lets k33p swimming lets k33p swimming dory???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i thought youd be a nemo or his dad person myself  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its a movie  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< unironically charming  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< youd get a kick out of the seagulls  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< mine  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< mine mine mine  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Your response has been recorded for future review. Thank you.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Point 2: Seagulls do not sound like that.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...either you actually went ahead and broke your own rule or youre actually there and you’re just fucking with me B|  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Guilty as charged.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< on which count???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< unethical brain clones or using a laser pointer to hypnotize me into smashing my face into a wall???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: In a different time, it would be both, but for now merely the latter.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Although in my defense, it actually was an away message. You caught me before I was completely off to lala land. It seems I managed to get the notifications up and working. Cleaning up the code work on a lot of these smaller projects makes for relaxing pre-dawn activities.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont you like  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< n33d sl33p???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< last time i was here you managed to fall asl33p at your desk and left a series of keysmashes as your face had an unexpected m33ting with the keyboard  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< if im k33ping you up then i demand you get the notifications unworking again and just let me yowl at the empty window like a feisty tom on in an alley fence all bound and determined to wake up everyone below thr33 stories while you snooze all nice and insulated in your penthouse suite  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Sleep is for the inefficient.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Trust me, if I was anywhere near that level I’d be out already.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< idunno bro youre sounding weird as shit tonight  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what time is it???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< are you sure you dont n33d a snooze???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: This is where I say time is relative and leave it at that since it makes no impact on our current conversation.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Suffice to say, this would be the first all nighter, should it turn out that way, that I’ve taken since our first asynchronous conversation.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Even if I desired to do so, this body is far less tolerant of my usual reckless brand of limit pushing.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I would say almost say its unusual, but I’m starting to think it’s just called getting old.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< oh man yeah dude youre in right form tonight  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< pawsitively ancient  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i think the museum called its missing its living fossil  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Ha. Ha. I’m rolling my eyes here. Which you cannot see.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I might as well get back up and continue working, since cleaning up code is more interesting than staring at the ceiling. It appears like it won’t be a nightmare night.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: All the pieces are in place for the software portion of your present.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: After that it’s all hardware.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Keep me company?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hell yeah do you even have to ask???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< youre a chatty catty tonight i can dig it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< so why did you ask about a cartoon fish???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: That was an old point that was left to see what your reaction was, if I’m being honest. We’ve already seen the movie.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: So in actuality even the away message was fucking with you.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: My apologies.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dude you cant just leave it at that  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< spill the beans already  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< how did you learn about finding nemo???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: My recall of the event is a little hazy but I suppose I can try and recount the occasion.

x-x-x

A young man sits awkwardly at a table, feeling both older than he is and younger than he looks. He’s been here before. Two--no, this is the third time now. Each one leads the situation to grow slightly more familiar. The people become white noise, even as he fragments his attention to observe them.

But if there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s that there’s a bubble of _space_ around this small table in the back that no one seems to be willing to cross. They skirt the edges, heading into the same back hallway where he--well, they could be listening in the same way he did, but for the most part they seem more than happy to skitter on with their own background routines, leaving Dirk to his own whirling thoughts as he watches his companion cross the small, mostly empty cafe.

It’s busier in the evenings. _Much_ busier. Newt had called the place a local favorite. Last month Jane had some sort of appointment during the usual time, so they’d been later, and that had been _hell_ . The noise had been completely and utterly _distracting_ , leading his companions to exchange looks and Jane to remark dryly on rescheduling if it was _that_ bad.

She isn’t even _here_ this month, although she has sent a copy of the risk assessment she’s been working on. When Dirk asks Newt about it, all he gets is an odd look and a shrug while the brown man divides the two plates to their respective places.

“Well--I-I don’t think she said exactly where but--she has other consulting jobs, right? You don’t give us enough work to make this gig anywhere near full time, and, you know her, always gotta be workin’. I think she gets bored and frustrated otherwise.”

Dirk is probably supposed to know this already, so he opts to stabs his fork in to the baby blue frosting of his small piece of cake with a noncommittal hum. The color reminds him of pesterchum. A different Jane, and his first experience with sweets.

He still couldn’t handle _that much_ sugar very well, but it was fucking _delicious_.

Not as good as his memories, though. The chocolate isn’t as rich, nor the icing as light. But it makes him think of her in a way that doesn’t _quite_ ache. Back when they first entered the Medium, when finally being able to _meet face to face_ was a novelty and it didn’t so much matter that the world ended because they’d had each other.

It hadn’t lasted long, what with Dirk having made his move and cementing his place officially as the plus one of One Jake English, and Roxy mourning what she could have had but lost; even Jake ended up running off on an adventure high, a whole new planet to explore.

...maybe even back then, for all the sleepovers at Roxy’s and Jane using the opportunity to spoil her friends rotten with sweets, things weren’t as Idyllic as he’d like to believe.

Dirk sets the fork down with a clatter, earning him both his companion’s attention and a nervous head tilt. There’s still another two bites to go, but between the sleeping frog uncomfortably wedged into his esophagus and the swarm of butterflies taking wing in his gut, he can’t find an appetite anymore.

Sensing something changing--expression, body language, some weird Strider tuned sixth sense borne from well over a decade of familiarity--Newt polishes off his muffin and pushes his own plate aside as well.

“I—I’ve been wondering..” He fiddles with a napkin, picking at the edges, turning it into tiny drifts of windblown snow, piling up in small mound beside crumb filled plate, “It’s not r-really work related…just…”

Dirk watches warily, drawing all but the most periphery of his attention in on the table, dialing up the tension in his shoulders and folding his arms before him. Withdrawing. Bracing. He doesn’t want any questions. Especially not personal questions, but fuck he feels like he owes the guy to at least hear it out.

“You’d never be caught dead without them before. Your glasses, I mean. They’re pretty key to the whole Strider aesthetic you always seemed—I mean I suppose it makes sense to build it into your image if you have to deal with some level of constant light sensitivity, but—“

Newt takes a breath and makes an esoteric gesture to indicate—what? The environment? It’s a fairly dimly lit one. Soft lights in frosted bulbs giving off a mood lighting that is brighter, but filtered properly, which would be comparable to the preferred light level in Dirk’s own home. Like the table, and the time, none of which had been discussed before the first meeting other than, “Don’t worry! It’ll be the usual set up.” Dim. Quiet. Semi-private. Dirk’s seat located on the side of the table with his back to the wall. A good view of the open dining room and any other patrons. Choices he now suspects are intended to cater directly to his comfort.

For all his nerves, Newt is _observant._

“It’s been months. Why wouldn’t you buy a new set by now? Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

Why indeed?

Newt’s right about one thing; shades mean a _lot_ to Dirk. His own, specifically.

It’s too much to allow him to simply wear the shades of a dead man.

Trying to explain that is the _last_ thing he wants to do.

“They’re a custom set.” Dirk’s fingers tap agitatedly against the table. It isn’t even a lie; as soon as he figures out a means of translating brain activity using current era tech with any sort of accuracy, he’ll make them in a heartbeat. “It takes time if you want the good shit. It’s not like I go out during the day often; when I do I just use the ones I got at the hospital.”

“Christ, Dirk, I was there when you got those, they might as well be paper for what good they do! At least wear a hat or something with it--don’t think I haven’t noticed that missing, either.”

“Like you have any say over my fashion choices,” Dirk snipes back before pinching the bridge of his nose and exhaling. His eyes close momentarily, missing the flash of panic that flits across the face of his companion. A veritable ‘oh shit’ moment that’s led the other man to physically flinch back, reading into that one response and applying it to all the data he’s collected over ten plus years.

But even if the tells are the same, the routines applied to them differ. Instead of the potential escalation Newt predicts, Dirk opens his eyes and runs a hand through his obviously hat-less hair, disrupting his meticulously prepared hairdo—fuck, too late now. It’s become a habit. Shit.

“Dave…doesn’t like the hats.”

“…so…they are...banned, now?”

Dirk recalls the flinch as he’d placed the red hat onto the kid’s little head. Thinks back to the one time he’d run into Dave coming out of his room while returning home with a load of shit from the corner store. The kid had recovered well, but the resulting ramble had a strange fixation on ridiculing his choice in headwear. And it had felt…charged, in a way his almost playful ragging on Dirk’s preference toward a particular canned legume never was.

Dirk still wears hats if he has to take an extended walk anywhere. He isn’t stupid about it. Not only was it free sun protection, but he _liked_ the hats. Despite a criminal lack of an orange one.

But…

Fuck.

“Guess they are.”

“How is the kiddo doing anyway?”

“Fine.”

The silence that falls is all kinds of awkward.

“D-did you like Nemo? My nephews love that movie.”

What the shit?

“How the hell do you know about that?”

His own spoken question hits Dirk like a punch in the gut he’d never even had the chance to see coming. Dimming the café momentarily from his vision as _flashes of red text, yet_ another _instance of blatant disregard of privacy, dread and anger burning so hot it turns_ cold _as Dirk reads over the logs. Hal rummaging through his chat logs. Through his psyche and then weaponizing it against Jake. Against_ him. _Driving a wedge in between them. Shattering the trust he had in himself._

_A faint fluttering of guilt, gnawing at his gut. Hal didn’t deserve that. Hal only tried to help. It was just some self fulfilling prophecy that anytime a Dirk Strider tried to fix shit, it would break something else._

He closes his eyes again. Sucks in a breath and holding it. Watches the red cracks overlaying lidded darkness pulse weakly.

And then after that moment, it passes.

Dirk opens his eyes as his companion begins to speak again.

“Dave told me,” Newt’s nervous. Fuck. Another breath in, out. Slow and easy. “He likes to text me for homework help or--said I owed him for the kidnapping--anyway, but this particular word problem involved fish—“

“And it turned into storytime. Of fucking course.” Not that Dirk is particularly angry. He shouldn’t be. Not over something like this. It just, it startled him.

Okay. So maybe that’s not being entirely truthful. He _is_ angry. But not at Newt. Or even at Dave.

“Dirk…?”

“He couldn’t ask _me?”_

He doesn’t properly think through the words; all are oddly raw and quiet, bubbling up through the containment cube he’d shoved them all in to. Flinches. Defensive, _deflecting_ rambles. Standing in front of a constantly closed door.

And then shit swings, and they’re sitting together on that musty old futon, Dirk drifting off to sleep, a small, warm weight tucked into his side. _The movie._

_Talk about mixed messages._

He’s been wanting to talk to Davepeta for more than several dozen lines every few weeks. It feels stupid. By now they’ve been out of touch for more time than they’ve actually known each other. But Dirk _misses_ it. He misses being able to just cut loose and _talk_ . Or, well, type. About Dave. About how _weird_ all this shit was, is, continues to be. About being sixteen and essentially a parent and not knowing what the _fuck_ he’s doing. Or how to _do it._ Davepeta is good at pulling all that shit out into the open.

“I…asked him,” Newt’s hesitant admission draws him out of the goddamn internal spiral, “About why he didn’t ask you. He told me that you were always busy.”

“I’m _not_ .” Pause. In for four. Hold. Out for five. “I work, yes. There’s a lot of base environments I need to set up to even get a mod development framework _possible_ . But I _ask._ I put out the hand, Newt.”

Newt. _Newt._ Oh god what is he _doing_ ? This dude isn’t a _friend._ Surely Dirk isn’t _that_ fucking starved, but even as he tries to cram that conviction through because that would make it real... It’s like something's gone and broke. Like Davepeta’s claws running through strands of mussed white hair, both relaxing and agitating, knocking free the insecurities and letting them spew out all over the table.

Newt doesn’t know how to handle it. Of course he doesn’t. He isn’t a _friend._ Dirk Strider had never let him be.

But that doesn’t stop the _words._ “He won’t take it. And if he does, he turns it into something to be ridiculed or never fucking talked about. If he’s not even comfortable asking me about _math_ then…”

What good is any of this?

“It’s only been a few months, Dirk. Whatever shit is going on between the two of you, it started a long time ago, and it’s not going to get cleaned up that fast.”

“I _know.”_ Petulant, like a child who’s gotten into trouble and practically asked to be punished in turn.

 _“_ I—Christ, I can’t believe I’m saying this to my literal boss—but you just need to…slow down. Set yourself some hours like a civilized person and stop working all the time. Keep setting the stage and making it clear—and I mean _crystal clear—_ that you _want_ this shit. If you ask him how his homework is going first, then he won’t have an excuse to come to me. His birthday is coming up right? December? Do something for him. Do you have any plans? _”_

 _Birthday._ Oh hell.

“Not yet.” Dave’s birthday. It’s also _Dirk’s_ birthday. His real one, not the one written down on the birth certification in the legal shit folder.

“Mmm. Do you even know what to get him?”

A shrug. A worried one. A familiar worry. A problem that he’d been turning over in his brain during the limited moments when he’s not completely overwhelmed with coding shit.

How the fuck is he supposed to know? He has the option to keep looking back over his shoulder, to his four-hundred year dead-yet-never-alive Bro, to try and understand this younger one, but how far would that take him? Even if he reads the aftermath of his past guesses as right, and, with some hunting, extrapolate food and fashion preferences in memorized historical videos, Dirk still admits that anything about his Bro’s private life had been utterly nonexistent. He’d been a fucking ninja when it came to keeping the paparazzi outta his business, personal or guerrilla.

A thoughtful hum from Newt breaks through the half recalled files flitting through his mind, snippets of videos and interviews and news articles dissolving into background noise as the priorities shift. “Ask him? Even if his first response is something ridiculous, it’s usually a good place to start looking. Carlos pulled the ‘I want a pony’ schtick on me, so I sprung for pony rides. The kid’s starting his first formal lesson as soon as he turns seven in a couple months. We coulda probably found a farm sooner, but his mom didn’t like that idea.”

“…you have kids?”

“Huh? Oh. No. Sister’s kids. I help her look after them when I can.” Newt glances down at his phone, nudging the power button and goggling at the numbers that reveal themselves, “Shit. It’s been nearly an hour and we haven’t even started yet. Jane’d kill us if she were here.”

“Write it off as team building.” Dirk shrugs, catching himself running his hand through his hair and then stubbornly folding his arms on the table in front of him. Quiet hands begets styled hair. “She’s the one who wanted me more invested in this shit. What better way than intentionally fostering a more personable rapport?”

The long-suffering glance that gets shot his way as Newt starts laying out his materials is one that’s so damn familiar it has Dirk freezing. That’s what Jane-- _his Jane--_ would look like when Dirk played obtuse about one of her jokes. The _I see what you’re doing and I know you’re just being silly in a way you will never admit_ look.

“You always make it sound so clinical.” But Newt doesn’t comment further, shaking his head, and taking a breath. Some of the nerves visibly bleed away, because this is just business. “I always hated that about my classes in university. It’s interesting, figuring out how people work, but it’s a little sad too. Reducing it to nothing more than data intended to sell a product.”

Dirk feels it, the wall building itself up around them. A line of professionalism that gives them both a reprieve from the messy emotions he’s somehow manage to spill all over the table.

Not for the first time, Dirk has no idea how to clean his shit up. It makes him feel small.

x-x-x

dataJammer [DJ] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< sup  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Nothing much.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Mostly just driving myself crazy trying to answer a question I’ve never needed to think about before.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< can i help???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: You could.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: But it’d probably be cheating.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< *djs ears perk* you realize that answer does absolutely nofang to dispel my curiousikitty  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m aware.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s partially why I typed it.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< BCC  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< well well mr tall dark and pointy were gonna play this game again huh  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< *dj fluffs themself up and leaps onto tts shoulder and drapes themselves all over that shit shedding feathers and fur all over him in revenge* its not like i care or anything baka  
timaeusTestified [TT]: That’s fine, I’m already covered in dust and shit. What’s some cat fur?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: What color would your hypothetical fur be anyway?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< uh  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< idk man i didnt think that far ahead  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< depends on if were getting full blown fantasy up in here or sticking to realistic colors  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< also what are you doing???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< our apartment was never dusty  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the floor was always covered in bros shit  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but heaven forbid there be dust  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< unless you’ve b33n slacking  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< have you b33n slacking???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Of course not. When you leave exposed electronics on every surface letting shit get dusty is just asking for something to catch on fire.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m up in the crawlspace.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< that there sure sounds like expurrience talking  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< are you like  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< looking fur somefang???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or just cleaning???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Both. It’s finally time for Future Dirk to become Present Dirk and clean up this damn space. I got tired of my clothes smelling like must and dust since this is the only place to put them.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: If I happen to find an answer to my question while I’m working then that would be fan-fucking-tastic.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you don’t sound too happy about it  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s just frustrating.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I know so much random trivia about my brother, and yet nothing about Dave.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i s33  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you know goin straight to the source aint ch33ting  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its efficient resource management  
timaeusTestified [TT]: …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but if youd rather dig through some musty boxes of  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< shit i dont even know whats up there it was kinda bros territory  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< if youd rather do that then ask me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or you know shorty  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the daviest of daves  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thats cool too  
timaeusTestified [TT]: …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< just a thought bro  
timaeusTestified [TT]: …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< woah there you never use that many finish crumbs  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont got any cash but i can offur some pocket lint and pawssibly some asteroid rock for your trouble  
timaeusTestified [TT]: What do you want for your birthday, Davepeta?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< did not expect that question  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you cant just spring that kind of question on a dude bro thats hella unfair i was just mindin my own business meandering my way through some   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< wait how _soon_ is that???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s… approaching.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< furreakitten hell  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< wasn’t it like  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< barely august before  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< all this???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: What would you want?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont know okay???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i just  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i want  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i want to go home

dataJammer [DJ] ceased pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

x-x-x

A young boy sits alone in his room, tapping his finger to a rhythm he hardly notices anymore. Dave scrolls through a blog, skimming more than reading. In the zone, absorbing the information in some freaky sort of osmosis where nothing matters, especially not the fact that this overhyped dude pretending to be hot shit just released a new single.

It’s a chore sometimes, but keeping current and on top of shit is tool numero uno in _actually_ being top shit. The information gets added to the toybox of his brain which can then be whipped out at a moments notice. Weaponized like an overstuffed sylladex, seeding shitty subject matter and turning it into beautifully ironic pieces of verbal or written art that cannot be reproduced in any sort of authentic fashion.

It’s not like he has much else to do right now anyway. The usual chat-client juggling he’s been slowly developing into another form of art is unnecessary; his chums are offline, busy doing some shit or another, leaving conversations hanging in limbo. The chatrooms he usually frequents are either similarly quiet, or boring as hell right now. Dave finds himself less and less socially satisfied after throwing around his weight and laying down some sick burns to anonymous--( _doomed. doomed?)_ \--randos.

Maybe instead of _reading_ about terrible music, he should _listen_ to some rad shit.

He scrolls through beatcloud. The site is hella small right now, filled with people who fancy themselves visionaries and the next trendsetters, but are probably just hipsters. Himself included. But if anyone questions him, he’ll roll his eyes, scoff, and ask if a hipster could do _this_ and then he’d whip out some foolproof example of entirely cool and ironic mix from his portfolio and the naysayer would be completely pwned.

But no one’s going to ask; his work speaks for itself.

Dave reaches for his headphones. They’re sick noise canceling ones, perfect for drowning out the crazy shifting world with its transient crows and fiery red skies one minute, and then weird purple-red wallpaper the next. The music--not his own, but a decent composition, even if it plucks the threads of nostalgia a little too hard for his liking, because even visionaries need to immerse themselves in other people’s work in order to rest and rejuvenate the creative juices--buoy him, propping him up as he begins doing the rounds again.

Checking on his chum roll, his preferred list is looking a little unnaturally small sitting at just two. Maybe he should look into adding one more. Three sounds totally solid. Nice and stable.

He drops another playful barb into John’s chat, a prayer to his health in the face of his dad’s sugary obsession, wrapping up a poorly concealed plea for him to return soon. At least he has an idea as to what John’s up to in the middle of this perfectly fine and peaceful weekend afternoon. No school for once, just family shit. And John’s dad has been hella clingy lately…

Though, Rose is a different story. It’s a toss up as to whether that _Idle Chum_ is the result of an attack of the parental kind, or if the girl fell asleep at her computer again. Sometimes she leaves a keysmash of the face kind. This time, the chat is clear.

The moment John starts developing similar narcoleptic shit, Dave’s already decided he’s going to run with the idea that he’s unknowingly some sort of sleep demon screwing with everyone unconsciously and dragging them into his nightmare-ish misery. His sleep has been hellish, but at least he isn’t passing out in the middle of the fucking day like other people he could name. _Rose._

John seems to sleep like a baby--safe for now. No need for Dave to purchase hellish real estate and build a home on some brimstone filled pit in from whence he can manipulate the sleeping hygiene of the poor mortals who have had the misfortune of being his friends. At least if he embraces the role he can try to put that shit back on track somehow. This state of affairs sucks ass.

He’s not gonna touch the bubble that pops in the back of his mind as to why _Bro_ would be affected by that same contagion. Proximity. Relationships. Whatever.

Speak of the devil: a blinking in the corner of his eye catches his attention. His cellphone. Stevens rarely texts first these days, not since it became unlikely that Bro would just up and keel over again. So that means the message is Bro. Probably going out, or up onto the roof or some shit. Getting all parental and communicative.

Dave ignores it. Ignores the conflicted feelings that squirm through his abdomen whenever he sees those damn texts, responds by ignoring them and moving on with his day.

It persistently flashes out of the corner of his eye.

Flashing.

Flashing.

Flashing in time with the the quiet noise that isn’t a noise buried deep within his heart. 1 to 1 to 1. He starts counting the seconds, sinking into the music while the weird as fuck beat in this song inexplicably syncs up with it.

It’s gotta be a screwy version of synesthesia or something because he _knows_ this song just switched its time signature and it doesn’t seem to change a damn thing. Honestly, it’s seriously harshed the vibe of the song too. It isn’t _supposed_ to have each beat falling on a second. If he wasn’t currently striving to stave off a mild panic he’d be totally scandalized at himself for forcing his brain to ruin such rad and wacky music.

480 seconds, three and a half mixes later, something whizzes expertly past his nose, passing in front of the monitor. His brain fills in the dots as a long bulbous nose, felt tufts, and splayed limbs, but before he can react, it reveals itself as crumpled paper, crushed into a ball, making a pathetic attempt at bouncing as it rolls along the surface of his desk. He watches it rebound and tumble to the floor, out of sight beyond the edge.

The hairs at the back of his neck are standing on end. Skin crawling. Heart racing. An attack. An attack in his room. _Bro promised._

He refuses to let it show.

Casual, as if he isn’t teetering on the edge, Dave reaches for his head, sliding the earpieces of his headphones off his ears to let them hang around his neck. A flick of the wrist spins the volume control in a practiced, minimal motion, taking the music from heart pounding down to muted.

The words drip out between deceptively dry lips, “You missed.”

Bro doesn’t miss.

A kick against the carpeted floor has the chair spinning counterclockwise, the back catching against the surface of the desk, leaving the door and its lounging occupant in full view.

“I got what I was aimin’ for, didn’t I?” The words are smooth. They always are, said with that same even, slightly biting tone, but that’s legit the only smooth thing about him. “I tried knockin’” A pause. As if he’s waiting for a reaction. Dave doesn’t give him one, “and textin’.”

After a moment, Dave reassesses and changes his verbiage to ‘loom,’ because ‘lounge’ implies some level of chill relaxation, and there’s nothing chill about how Bro is leaning against the wooden frame. The dude is wound up tighter than a spring and looking like something a feral cat dragged in and left to simmer.

“What’d’ya want, Bro?” What do you want and why are you _here?_ For four months, this room has been his _safe space_. No ambuses. No intrusions. No invasions.

And okay, maybe this isn’t exactly a puppet trap. Maybe Dave _had_ asked for it in a way by ignoring that flashing light. Maybe Bro still hasn’t _quite_ breached that line, hovering in the doorway and not taking one step forward, but…

Tell that to the goddamn pounding of his heart, even as he _consciously_ starts counting along with the pulsing time, trying to force the weird synthesia to kick in and slow that freaking jackrabbit down.

It works a little. That’s honestly probably why he’s able to keep as cool as he can right now.

“Just a question, lil’ bro,” That weird nickname again. It’s better than ‘little man,’ but it’s close yet different enough to be strange. That seems to describe a lot of things about Bro since his--

Isn’t Dave a bit young for a midlife crisis? Fuck it, the term fits.

“What do you want for your birthday?”

...what the hell?

What kind of question is THAT?

“I’m serious Dave. December’s coming up.”

Oh had he actually said that out loud?

“Shit I uh, you can’t just spring that sort of thing on a dude, Bro. Birthdays are big, special occasions that need like, planning and thought and shit. You can’t expect me to take two seconds to root around in the bubbling cauldron of my brain and give you a profoundly satisfying answer. You’ll likely get uh, a potato or something.”

“...a potato?” Dave didn’t realize Bro could sound simultaneously unimpressed and incredulous. It’s almost enough to make him giggle, but he’s been trained too well for that sort of slip-up.

“I mean yeah, who the fuck wouldn’t want a spud? I’m all about the apples, even the _pomme de terre,_ which is the french name. In case you didn’t know it.” That’s totally not a nervous giggle. If he ignores it, then it didn’t actually happen, “Dirt Apples. Haha.”

“Dave…”

Dave hasn’t heard that tone in a long time, the way Bro sort of sighs into the name, like he’s forcing it out through lips that barely move. Showing any sort of emotion even exasperation is beneath him.

“I don’t know bro, okay? It’s not like it ever means much. It’s just another day. I’ll be going from nine to the big one--” Competing answers press against his eyes, so he closes them behind the safety of his shades and centers himself and finds the right one. Duh. Why would he even be thinking otherwise? “--zero. Which is what it’s worth. Nada. Nothing. It isn’t even graduating elementary school levels of worth yet. Hit me up when we reach the sweet sixteens and I can learn to drive or something.”

Life milestones, what are those? Hah. With his luck the world would do something stupid and completely improbable, like, end before he ever got to face that particular hollow victory.

“There has to be something.”

“ _Fine,”_ Dave snaps. He could ask for a new sound rig. Could ask for a new camera. A new computer. But that was all shit and shit meant _squat_ when you could reduce it to a captchacode on a card somewhere. There was only one thing he wanted. Okay maybe two. Some fucking normalcy and-- “I want my _friends_. Which I have, by the way. But they are on the opposite sides of the fucking country and we’re smack dab in the middle of lonestar central. It’s impossible. Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 boondollars--”

“Boondollars?”

“You know--” actually Dave doesn’t, but it fits with the metaphor well enough, probably read it online somewhere, “Monopoly money. Fuckin’ worthless, but we collect that shit anyway to spend on cute little plastic houses and hotels to gouge the shit outta the other players--”

“I know what monopoly is, Dave.” Bro rolls his eyes, and actually legitimately sighs, running long calloused fingers through his hair and sending it one step closer to roosterville again. God, if Dave’s room wasn’t right next to the bathroom he’d swear Bro just doesn’t care anymore. But no, he’ll spend an hour in there primping, and then end up right back in chicken town because of some weird tic. “If you can get me in touch with Egbert’s dad…”

Dave’s heart skips a beat. He doesn’t even register the fact that there’s no way in hell Bro should know John’s name. His brain screeches to a halt on the fact that it isn’t an outright handwave or dismissal or a sarcastic remark.

It doesn’t last long. Dave can’t even let himself be hopeful for all of two seconds because fuck him, right universe?

“Just get me--shit I don’t know, a new mouse. Make it one of those fancy as fuck ones with rainbow lights and five buttons on the side and we’ll call it a day. John’s dad would never go for it. You don’t understand how much of an overprotective helicopter the dude is. He doesn’t even like us _talking_ much less would allow John to fly halfway across the country for a _birthday_. Can’t you read between the paranoid lines? The whole scenario’s got stranger danger classic internet predator written all over it for anyone with eyes to see.”

Dave hates that he’s allowed himself to hope for even one goddamn second. Mr. Egbert might have admitted defeat after almost five months, what with no signs of John giving up on his newest internet penpal, but that didn’t mean he’d agree to anything that would let his son see one of the two--( _three. three? there should be three)--_ people that’ve somehow managed to fill the big gaping hole in Dave’s heart. People he would never met, and yet he somehow feels the absence of so strongly that it, just, sometimes it smashes into him like a brick to the face.

This is not a track of thought Dave particularly wants to follow, and he finds himself sort of resenting Bro for even bringing it up.

He’s done. _Done._ Dave blocks Bro out, slamming the metaphorical door even as the physical one to his room remains wide open and ripe for the entering. Headphones fit snugly over his head and Bro might as well not even fucking exist anymore for all he cares. A crank and the music is blasting. He’s drowning in it and that’s fucking fine with him because he doesn’t want to breathe anyway.

And so he misses a quiet, “...I’ll see what I can do,” before Bro shakes his head, messes up his hair further, and withdraws from the room.

x-x-x

dataJammer [DJ] began pestering  timaeusTestified [TT] 

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im sorry i flipped out like that  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It seems you’ve regained connection at a time in which DS is either asleep or otherwise indisposed. This is a temporary away message intended to acknowledge that fact and offer greetings and offer some food for thought to get you through these trying times without his presence. Please stand by for the current set of notes to be delivered sporadically over the next period of idle response time, each interval expressly calculated for maximum entertainment efficiency and maintenance of the connection.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< oh hey am how are you doing  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< fine??? thats cool  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< am???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< away meowssage???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you better not be lurking waiting to fuck with me this time dirk  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dude what about my notes  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you purromised me notes  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dirk i think you broke your bot B(  
timaeusTestified [TT]: You didn’t break it.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< oh  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< did my caterwauling wake you up again???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I wasn’t asleep.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: The bot’s just set to auto respond if I don’t see it within a period of time.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I didn’t know you named it.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you were pretty out of it last time im not surpurrised  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< s33med weird to refer to it as you even tho it was using your name  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it isnt you right??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you dont have a very good track record with this stuff  
timaeusTestified [TT]: No.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I was very careful. All it does is detect input and post pre-written notes.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< so what were the notes???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i was purromised notes  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Well, the first note was…  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m sorry.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what no bro dude it was pawsitively not your fault  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i just  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< didnt expect it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< bro never asked  
timaeusTestified [TT]: He didn’t ever get you anything for your birthday?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< no! no! not like that  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< he never missed a birthday  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but i always either told him what i wanted  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or it was some random handme down  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< like my turntables  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< which were dope  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but resulted in fewer spotlights to fr33ze up in like bambi at the sight of an oncoming car  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I see.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I asked Dave.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< did he give you a better answer than I did???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: It was in the same vein, funny enough.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: He wants to see his friends.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< christ kid ask for the moon why dont you  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< well??? you cant just leave it there  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i cant imagine you calling psycho mom up to invite her daughter over to a pawty  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I didn’t. I talked to Mr. Egbert.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...you did?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: He wasn’t willing to bring John out for the birthday. But after we discussed for a while...he did invite us to their home to celebrate instead. Rose too.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< damn shorty im legit jealous  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thats  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< an amazing gift bro  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< when do you leave???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Stop trying to get me to divulge the state of the timeline, it doesn’t solve anything to keep fixating on it.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its my birthday too bro  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< … one of them  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< regardless of the semantics i think i deserve to know if im going to miss my birthday  
timaeusTestified [TT]: In a week.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If it makes you feel better however, this interval was much shorter than the rest.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: You might be close.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...i hope so  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im just going to k33p flying  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i cant even guess how long ive b33n going  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dave f33ls like hes just over the horizon  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< just a little more  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< a few more wingbeats  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< even if i find derse and sync up  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< how do i search for the lab without drifting again???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’ll be here, Davepeta. I promise.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: We’ll get you home.  
  
x-x-x 

**From: Dirk**  
**To: Newt**  
**CC: Jane**

It’s official, and tickets are booked. I’ll be out of town next week. The works with the schedule as is, but I won’t be reachable at all. So either send me that shit ahead of time or it’ll need to wait till the meeting.

**From: Newt**  
**To: Dirk**  
**CC: Jane**

Did you decide what to get Dave?

I’ve gotten in contact with the representatives from the suppliers I lined up last month and relayed the design documents for the trial run. Most of the components were fairly straight forward, although I do think one of the chipset guys was slavering over the notes you made to consolidate size and weight. You’re going to have to share those secrets of yours one of these days.

**From: Dirk**  
**To: Newt**  
**CC: Jane**

Don’t act like you don’t know about it. I had to ask you about rides to the airport.

It’s just basic design principles. They’ll figure it out eventually. Once shit is invented it becomes a race full of R&D dollars being thrown at the problem of efficiency and streamlining. I just bothered to think about it early. When will they be ready?

**From: Newt**  
**To: Dirk**  
**CC: Jane**

All I know is you’re going to Washington for some reason. Not why. Excuse me for being curious. At least it isn’t New York.

We don’t have a production contract nailed in yet, but I think we’ll have the ability to pick and choose given the results of the inquiries. For the prototype, I’m mostly pulling strings to get some custom work for a proof of concept. February? If we’re lucky? I could probably push to have it sooner but that’ll cost extra.

**From: Jane**  
**To: Newt**  
**CC: Dirk**

Do I need to remind you two that personal emails exist? This isn’t the place to be discussing a child’s hypothetical birthday party.

Avoid rush fees if you can. The income from the website will cover most of the initial start up cost, but there’s a much longer production lag before we can begin to claim profits on this venture. You’re lucky this is a private business. Trying to convince shareholders to let go of the website’s ridiculous profits would be hell and well nigh impossible.

**From: Dirk**  
**To: Jane**  
**CC: Newt**

It began as work related. It isn’t my fault Newt is being nosy.

February is more than fine. As long as the parts come in, I’ll have a functioning prototype by March, easy. Any earlier would be a waste.

**From: Jane**  
**To: Dirk**  
**CC: Newt**

You did obtain permission for your little consulting expedition correct? The last thing we need is Skaianet claiming espionage. I can’t imagine people won’t be asking questions about some of these...advancements of yours. Skaianet is a giant with a long history, even if its supposedly all private contract work. We’re a multimedia company who haven’t dabbled in tech since that utterly botched attempt back before you pulled me in, and now all of sudden we’re putting out cutting edge computing hardware? It’d be too easy for small minds to jump to the wrong conclusions.

**From: Newt**  
**To: Jane**  
**CC: Dirk**

I filed the paperwork yesterday, and found a company to charter for the travel. I don’t know what he wants with some decommissioned facility in the middle of the pacific ocean, but ever since the founder dropped off the face of the planet no one cares about the place. Dirk, are you _sure_ it’s relevant?

**From: Dirk**  
**To: Newt**  
**CC: Jane**

Yes.

**From: Newt**  
**To: Dirk**

I know I’m going to be driving you to the airport again, but, what about Dave?

**From: Dirk**  
**To: Newt**

What about him?

**From: Newt**  
**To: Dirk**

I mean he’s going to be alone for at least a week, two if you decide on the extension, right? I thought you’d ask me to look after him while you’re gone but you haven’t so I assumed you’d made other plans.

**From: Dirk**  
**To: Newt**

I don’t need to. He’s coming with me.

**From: Newt**  
**To: Dirk**

...what? Really??? You’re going to drag a ten year old along to a largely deserted island while you talk to some barmy inventor???

**From: Dirk**  
**To: Newt**

Problem?

**From: Newt**  
**To: Dirk**

Uhm **yes** there’s a problem! That kind of travel stressful on a child--and believe _me,_ looking at a mockup of the itinerary you’re going to have to take in order to even _get_ there, it’s going to be hell on earth for an adult, much less a bored kid. Doesn’t Dave have weekly homework assignments due too???

On top of that, I checked the place out. It's largely uninhabited wilderness outside of the lab building. It's dangerous Dirk.

**From: Dirk**  
**To: Newt**

He can take care of himself. I can take care of him.

**From: Newt**  
**To: Dirk**

He’s a _kid._

You _know_ he can stay with me, although I know he’ll probably protest. Hell I’d be willing to spend the week house-sitting for you so he wouldn’t even need to be relocated.

 **From: Newt**  
**To: Jane**  
[Forwarded Message]

Help me out here.

**To: Dirk**  
**From: Jane**  
**CC: Newt**

Lord, you two are acting like children. I had wondered why there weren’t any replies forthcoming.

Dirk: This is not a vacation. You will be working. That is the whole point of this venture, is it not? Will you be able to keep an eye on him? Keep him entertained? Keep him from wandering off? What if he got lost and hurt? Would you trust yourself to give 100% to whatever research you have planned if you had to keep an eye on a curious child who only sees a new adventure? You know how you get on a project. Do not even try to deny it.

Leave the kid at home and hire a babysitter. Or just let Newt do it. He broods enough about you two, might as well make him put that talent to some use instead of clucking about incessantly like this. It’s far simpler, safer, and more efficient this way.

**From: Dirk**  
**To: Jane**  
**CC: Newt**

...your objection has been noted. I will take it under advisement.

**From: Newt**  
**To: Jane**

Thank you.

**From: Jane**  
**To: Newt**

You _owe_ me.

X-x-x

A young one that was once two drifts alone in the dark. They can’t see anything, not even in the faint light of the pink and red sparks trailing off the feathers of their beating wings keeping in time with the tired thundering in their ears. They know they aren’t actually drifting--they feel the speed at which they’re flying. Feel it tugging at their hair and clothes and lashing across patches of exposed skin. In the not-so-distant space is a humming that spurs them forward even as they are so mentally and physically exhausted from the nightmare and emotional tap dancing and the constant flying. That’s not even mentioning the unconscious expenditure of power seeping into the space around them, slowly and carefully working to realign with those far distant bits of a soul that had once been identical to theirs, but circumstances have changed so much--

However, in the depths of that exhaustion, they find it’s a struggle to stay hopeful. No matter how close they feel, their surroundings never change, staying in this deep, dark, infinite space of a game that has yet to render. There’s nothing here, they know that now. _Nothing_ to anchor the shifting time and space; in this dimension that always was, and yet somehow an environment that hasn’t quite yet been built.

They are tired. So very tired. Davepeta Strider-Lejion-- also occasionally or formerly known as Data, Davesprite, Nepetasprite, Dave Strider, Nepeta Lejion, they’ve had many names and therefore have a hard time picking one full name for the narrative introduction that encompasses everything they are--might not be able to hear the thrumming of the timeline, but can guess they’ve been on the wing for several hours.

And yet at the same time, four months.

It had been an early August night when they woke up from a catnap in order to slay a dragon. And now… December. A week, days away from one of the few meaningful milestones they’d historically ever had.

It’s probably already passed. It’s been long. Too long, since the last time they’d seen the communicator in their claws flash orange, the only light aside from the fading pink and red magic that brings anything at all into this blankness. There was no rhyme to it, minutes or hours, the time could be days or weeks or months on the other side for all they know.

And then. Just like that. Something _clicks._ Something changes. Something looms out of the darkness, too close to stop gracefully.

You throw yourself to the side to avoid smashing into the pockmarked surface, sliding between your would-be doom and its neighbor with a silent but inward rush of adrenaline buoying you up and away from the nihilistic dissociation you were wallowing ever deeper towards. The wall of shadows shift around you, and you gather yourself up and dive into the pathways between the stones.

You know what this is. You know where you are. You imagine you can feel the shift as you pass from a lawless, exhausting mess of malleable existence to a smooth and steady thrum, its tethers twisting around you and anchoring you like a long lost friend.

Right on the other side of this thick band of scattered rock is a planet, glowing dimly from thousands of not-lights in thousands of windows as carapacians go about their routine. Around that planet is a moon, with four towers, one on each facet. And somewhere, in this drifting mass of stone, is _home._

You look down at the communicator in your claws. It’s orange and steady, not grey, or blinking or…

timaeusTestified [TT]  began pestering dataJammer [DJ]

timaeusTestified [TT]: Welcome back.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m assuming the readable timestamp means we’re back in the same string. This is the first time you’ve come online on my end without you needing to initiate the connection. 

There’s a time stamp. _There’s a time stamp._ One that doesn’t look like someone ran it through an image compressor three hundred times.

You don’t know where the fuck to go from here, floating in this mass of rock, pulling your tired and shaking wings close and draping them around yourself like a protective cocoon.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thank mew  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< christ im just  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< shaking  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Did you make to Derse?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yeah i just  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< n33d a minute  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im not even a timebound god and i can tell the difference holy fuck  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its like ive b33n bouncing around in giant metal death machine without a seatbelt this whole time  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and suddenly bam nice and tight and smooth as butter gliding through time like it aint no thing  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I told you it would work out.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yeah well i still n33d to find the proverbial n33dle in this burning haystack  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< fuck who decided the veil n33ded orbital drift  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m pretty sure you said that last time.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i did and its still true  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its a furreaking game it doesnt n33d physics simewlations too  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Actually, those physics simulations might be to your advantage.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If Derse is under player timeline influence, then anything that it exerts gravitational influence upon should also have a limited stabilizing influence, which would then act on other nearby objects, otherwise those physics would be worthless if the whole ring was operating on different temporal wavelengths.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: While I wouldn’t recommend attempting to make the flight to prospit or out to the debris cloud without my gameself as a mobile anchor, navigating the veil should allow you to move without slipping as long as you don’t stray too far from permanent objects.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I assume the eventual presence of our planets will help stabilize the space between once the session starts, but until then…  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont worry this feral kitten is sufficiently traumatized by their unintended romp through the untamed jungle  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im gonna hand in my hunter cred and just curl up on the nearest warm lap and become a bonafide housecat  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’ll believe it when I see it.

You could keep going. And you do manage a few more half hearted lines to drag the ridiculous metaphor into the ground, but you find yourself trailing off and just, staring down at the glowing screen. A mess of black-green feathers curl around you, surrounded by a mass of rocks that are slowly orbiting some dark and unseen center of gravity, marking the edge of a delicate web of push and pull between Derse, its moon, and the ring it accompanies.

You still have to find the lab.

Somehow.

You wish you had a map.

A beacon.

Anything, to call you home.

Something waiting for you.

And...you do, don’t you?

It hurts, to open up. Not only physically, uncurling your cramping wings, but also prying open the part of you that has been incessantly zero’d on in _Dave_ to get you this far _._ On those rhythms beating in the back of your mind. The ones that pick and tug at the bits of your soul, co-opting the rhythm of your heart for its own.

The sword to your shield. You need to look beyond him. Push yourself past the edges, filtering out the achingly familiar and _look_. You’ve followed him in the pitch black purely by the sight and sound of his soul before, and even dim and locked in dreams, you know what to look for.

So you close your eyes and open your heart and force yourself to fly, listening for the soft sound of the ocean waves and metal to guide you home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand there you have it! Hope it was worth the wait. There's still one more mini-arc's worth of interlude left before we get into act 2, ie the actual birthday party :3c, but I wanted to ask you guys your opinion on how you want that handled. This chapter needed to be a single one due to the way the narrative unfolded, but the rest of the interlude is more conventional. Would you like it all in one chapter (and as a result might take another month before the next one) or in the usual scene-by-scene weekly updates? I don't have a particular preference.
> 
> I love hearing your thoughts so pls leave a comment if there's anything you wish to ask or add or want clearing up! And if you have an opinion re: the above question definitely be sure to leave me an answer! I'll try to remember to edit the end notes with the result by friday. Considering I spent the weekend recovering from that mad dash, I probably wouldn't have anything ready by tuesday! Be sure to follow my tumblr at katreal-fic if you wanna see lil like, status updates and in progress word counts and stuff. 
> 
> I got some special thanks to throw out here though: Hyena is a literal godsend and edited/beta'd this monster of a chapter into something more coherent because I apparently got my wires crossed suddenly shifting back into third person after half a year of exclusively playing in second. Tense confusion and stray Yous galore! [caledfwlchthat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/caledfwlchthat/pseuds/caledfwlchthat), [deserts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deserts/pseuds/deserts), [peonies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peonies/pseuds/peonies), and [alexharrier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alexharrier/pseuds/Alexharrier) for the much needed pompoms and encouragement as it slowly, and horrifically dawned on me that this couldn't be a simple 5-7k chapter. Nope. It was far too ambitious for that!
> 
> (ps also check out all their fics if you like striders and or shenanigans because they are all amazing writers plskthx so is hyena but they won't let me link them :c )


	51. [I1P2] December 2nd, 2006

## Dirk > Be Honest with Yourself

It’s just.

So.

Big.

You’d picked an early flight on purpose; if there’s one thing you’ve realized during the last four months on this packed ball of dirt that is the Earth, it’s that the earlier you chose to do shit, the better. There’s a metric fuckton of people in this city and most seem allergic to getting up before the sun unless they are contractually obligated due to extenuating circumstances such as...oh, some soulbond to an unfathomable and merciless entity. It’s a state of affairs you rather appreciate, giving your...flexible working schedule.

Standing here in the terminal of what your paperwork and one yawning not-friend tells you is the Intercontinental Airport, you still find yourself stretching your awareness to a sub-level of paper thin just in order to comprehend the sheer _size_ of the place. It’s like that first moment walking into the grocery store all over again, when you can see just how high the ceiling is, towering over the row upon row of shelves.  Just, multiplied exponentially; an unfathomably wide expanse of human-made structure, not auto-generated by the game, and it makes you feel…

Tiny. Insignificant. A single ant crawling across the windowsill, looking out over the massive expanse of open world beyond.

Not that the place is empty. A soaring, curved white roof spreads out far above your head, entire _walls_ of windows overlooking the pre-dawn flat expanse of concrete and metal monsters idling in their berths, waiting for their cue to take to the sky.

You just.

Can’t.

Imagine this huge space

Filled with _people._

Even at five in the fucking morning it isn’t empty. You can still see a handful of living breathing _doomed_ bodies just going about their business. Your attention flits from one to another, loitering in various areas of the terminal. A small group is clustered before a wall of screens and monitors, filled with information. Others stand in the lines you just came from, bags in hand, waiting to interact with the _npc_ behind the counter to check their baggage and get their itinerary and be on their way.

You didn’t have bags. At least not huge bulky ones that need to be tagged and checked, delivered to the belly of the plane to await transport. Your fingers tighten over the strap of the faded orange and black duffel over your shoulder. It smells like dust; of course it does you found it up in the crawlspace, along with the similarly colored backpack Dave has slung over his shoulders. They are old. Newt had taken one look at them and sighed, “God, you still have _those…?”_

Dave’s bro didn’t travel often, it seems, if the depths at which you found them was any indication. Well, that and the fact that Newt seems to think you incapable of navigating this fucking process on your own.

You wonder if these were even the bags he’d packed up and left New York with. They felt old enough, and you never was one for throwing out something perfectly usable due to bad associations.

In fact, you usually kept them around. A constant reminder picking at your scars.

Stop it. This isn’t getting you _anywhere_. The stray self-admonition felt weak, but you latch onto it and reinforce it, using it to stave off the emotion spiral you feel yourself teetering towards. Such musings on your coping mechanisms are all fine and dandy for a sulking session on the roof when you are alone, but not when you’re sitting ramrod straight in an uncomfortable chair next to your brother waiting for your not-friend to finish what whatever he was doing at the counter. You’d already checked in through one of the kiosks, but he’d snagged the boarding passes wanting to check something.

The better part of valor is accepting when someone knew more than you did, so you just let him do his thing.

Christ you were starting to trust the guy.

At least when it came to navigating this confusing mess.

Dave is pretending to be absorbed in his phone, “liveblogging” the experience as he called it. But you note the small furtive glances he keeps shooting everything, even as he stops texting for a moment to crack his knuckles and stretch out his arms before curling back into the thin, leather...? You aren’t sure at all. It’s back and smooth and shiny but not plastic. Maybe synthetic.

Speak of the drones and they’ll perform a flyby, you spot newt crossing the wide expanse of the atrium to where you and Dave wait.

“Dirk? Dude, you--” Newt interrupts himself with a yawn, “--okay? You’ve gone white as a--w-well, I mean, you’re usually pale I guess but--”

“What he means is you look like you’re about to fucking pass out, bro.” Dave comments without looking up from his phone. “You look like a startled jackrabbit with your ears twitching every which way. It’s totally harshing my selfie game, bro. I gotta sufficiently document this, my first ever escape from this hot hellscape.”

“You _could_ leave me out of the pictures; then I won’t be ruining your exultant vibe,” Fuck, you can do this. You sink your mental claws into that anxiety and feel it flow around and over you like scurrying ants. It makes you want to shudder and dig your slick palms into the rough and totally not satisfying fabric of your pants but-- you direct the next bit at Newt, “I’m fine.”

“I’m not sure I believe you,” His mumble was just loud enough for you to hear, and you decide to pretend you didn’t. Dave snickers, but you don’t acknowledge that either, just accept the thicker-than-normal and slightly waxy paper slips back into your possession. You’re keenly aware of the proximity as his fingers barely miss yours, just like you’re aware of how close Dave hovers at your side as he uncurls and clambers to his feet.

“I made sure you guys got decent seats. It didn’t save your selections for some reason . I’d suggest the window seat for you. It’s harder to get up and move, but at least you have the wall to lean on and sleep. I know how you get in cars.”

You don’t have the heart to tell him that sleeping is probably impossible with how wound up you are. 

“Okay, you’re both checked in, you only have carry-ons, seatings’ done, request submitted,” He’s mumbling, mostly to himself, ticking off each step on his fingers, “All that’s really left is to get through--security--It’s been forever since I’ve been here--You’re in that terminal, now where was--”

Security. Gates. Terminals. Right. You can _feel_ your brain stutter, red flickering and struggling like a search index relying on a weak wi-fi signal as you reach back into your recall. The information is there. You know it is. Maybe it’s all the anxiety bubbling up within you like some witch’s dastardly bubbling brew, but the response to your query is sluggish as you struggle to retrieve the mental file you’d been pouring over last night. The data comes eventually however, weakly flickering, the correct compartment located and cracked.

Okay.

Maps. Plotted out routes. Synopses of articles written seriously for first time flyers, and then those with a more tongue-in-cheek approach. Airport etiquette and procedures…

You turn and compare the layout to the mental construction you build from that data, placing yourself in the scale model and then--tilting your head you find it, “It’s back toward the escalators.”

Sure enough, there’s a sight along the wall with the words security in either direction. There were signs pointing in either direction, with different gate numbers under each. A glance as the boarding passes and your eyes then flicker to the one closest to where you’re seated, “To the left.”

Newt pauses and turns to look at you, quizzical, “I thought you hadn’t flown before?”

“I did look at a map, Newt.”

Maybe it was more sarcastic than it needed to be. Dave sighs. “Okay, okay, enough with the tension I just wanna get on the plane and into the sky already. I got a date with an Eggybert waiting for me on the other end of this shindig. Gotta say, I never imagined I’d be psyched to take a 5 hour trip through the digestive tract of a giant metal turkey only to be shit out on john’s head, but hey, it’s my birthday so if I want to be turkey shit then it’s you guy’s responsibility to make sure it happens right?”

You roll your eyes and Newt sputters. You suppose the poor guy never did manage to become immune to Dave’s...Daveisms.

“You realize that we still have,” You check your own phone, ignoring the instinctive flick to check on the pesterchum notification. Dummy. Of course they wouldn’t be there. You needed Wi-Fi for the moment to connect and you don’t have it, “Just under an hour before the flight even departs?”

“I know. But what I don’t know is _why_ we had to leave so early this place is practically a ghost zone. I could have easily gotten another hour’s worth of zzz’s and been total spunky genki dude throwing confetti and shit everywhere.”

He might as well _be_ throwing confetti everywhere, with how goddamn excited he is, the thought makes you snort.

“You’re supposed to be at least an hour early, longer if international. It’s just being safe. Normally people like, grab breakfast or something while they wait.” Newt offers helpfully, “Anyway, if you’re ready to head back, there’s not much else for me to do here. Just check in with the attendant at the gate when you get there and--uh. You... _did_ leave your strife deck at home right?”

...No?

“Oh god you didn’t. Okay, disengage them and give them here, I’ll take them home.”

Dis...engage...your strife deck?

The thought just... _doesn’t_ compute for you. At all. You know how to do it. You devoured several sylladex manuals in your desperate attempts to absorb all the knowledge your bro felt necessary to leave with you. A set of verbal commands and the square tray slides out of your sylladex and into your hand, your bladekind and empty puppetkind specibi standing out against the rows.

You don’t move. Newt goes to take it from you and your fingers curl tightly around the square bottom. His brown hand hovers, inches from your own. His voice is quiet, and oddly firm. Deliberately nonthreatening. “I’m serious Dirk, you can’t take that shit on airplanes without a permit, and those only go to like, law enforcement and shit. Not since--well, since they stepped up security after 9/11. If you take them into the check point they’ll be confiscated and then you might never get your shit back. It’s better to just leave it with me.”

Dave reluctantly glances up at you, but when you force your clenched fingers to release and the deck is removed from your possession, he holds out his hand as well, the bladekind card standing tall and alone in its slot. Newt is taken aback, even as he accepts the additional component, holding one in each hand for a brief moment before a muttered word and they vanish into the compartments of his own sylladex. “You know what, I’m… not surprised.”

“Dude, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just...normally people don’t get that mod till they are older. If ever. I mean.”

“A man is never too young to start learning how to defend himself. Don’t _you_ have one? I bet you do. And I bet its something lame like, I don’t know, bookkind. I can see it; beaning someone over the head with a giant ass book--”

As Dave defends himself--and by proxy _you_ for allowing him to keep one--you find yourself watching Newt’s expression. What you see troubles you. The uncertainty. The worry. The...discomfort that had flitted across his face upon reading the card inserted in Dave’s Strife Deck. The resignation. The...disappointment.

Oddly enough. That made you feel uncomfortably like you’ve done something _wrong._

It does make you feel uncomfortably like you’re letting Newt down. And you kind of _really hate that._ He’s like a sad nervous puppy, which you’ve never seen in person of course, so his face is smack dab in the middle of the reference dictionary for you, and it fits the definition of “makes you feel irrationally guilty for causing this expression to exist” that’s penciled in right under the idiom.

You didn’t think twice about Dave holding a strife deck, even if you find yourself determined not to make him use it. You’ve had one as long as you remember--better yet, ever since you were old enough to find and understand the instructions in order to install it. You’ve been _training_ all your life. Training required weapon proficiency, which require a strife allocation.

You’ve known you were going to have to fight. You ran out to meet that looming destiny. Between the occasional drones that stumbled upon your home, and the eventual game session, you would have been _dead_ without it.

...no, you know that you could never take it away from Dave, _would_ never remove that source of security given what you know of _why_ he gave you that look before handing it over…

He wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t let yours go first.

You guess you’re just gonna have to stay guilty.

It’s not like it’s a very novel situation for you. You’re used to it.

  


## Dave > Act Your Age

“And this Dave,” You hear the voice somewhere above you and to your right sigh, “is why we were here so early.”

You want to scowl in his direction, but that would be Telling. “What is going on anyway??? We haven’t moved in ages. All I can see is pants. And asses. And asses in pants. Oh don’t forget the bags. Maybe even some baggy asses.”

Oops, that one might have earned you a nasty glare from the lady in front of you. You give her the blandest return stare you can muster, and amusedly you watch her mouth open to say something, then freeze and turn back without a sound. You didn’t think you were _that_ intimidating given you were, you know, almost 10 and unfortunately have yet to even _think_ about hitting those puberty fueled growth spurts. You can’t wait for that shit. “We’ve been here for-fucking-ever.”

You don’t need to sneak a glance down at your phone. You know _exactly_ how long it’s been since you both joined in the line. 30 minutes and 34, 35, 36. The counter bubbles out of your background thoughts at the acknowledgement of its existence.

(-Just one of many, many clocks. The world is full of clocks and counters and timers and you can shift from one to another without so much as a stutter, like the knob on an old timey radio, flicking through the available frequencies and transitioning from station to station and genre to genre and music to news to sportsball.-)

You pull yourself out, taking the information and letting the rest settle back into the underlying rhythms that ground you. 36 minutes and 5, 6, 7--roughly halfway until the ballpark estimate your bro had thrown out before Stevens had abandoned you both in apparently the ONE place in the entire ghostzone that had a population of more than like. Five. People.

Mandatory security checkpoint. It was a bottleneck. A net spread across the singular hallway leading from the main terminal to the gates, catching people like a wriggling stream of helpless fish as they flop toward their final destination.

“Yo, bro,” You crane your neck to see him, squished as you are into this cordoned and winding line, it’s all you can do to not be pressed into his side. A far cry from your preferred position, which was at least several feet away--out of range, not that it helped when he could flashstep faster than you could blink--at the very least a good enough distance that you can cooly regard him without straining your already abused vertebrae. Being this close and not like, sitting down or something on the same level, was fucking exausting, “Use your freaky height to see what the hold up is. Or just share with the class since you’ve probably known for ages.”

“I could boost you if you want.” You see those orange eyes flick down, his abnormally tense frame loosening up in that way that you can tell is forced for the appearance of nonchalance. The offer isn’t delivered any differently than anything else ever is, but it--you hesitate for too long and he is looking away, taking your stone-faced silence as a refusal. He leans out over the edge of the cordon slightly--not too much since whoever designed this place wanted to pack as many hapless dorys into this particular roped off tin can as they could so there’s even more people on the other side--peering through gaps in the wall of people.

“No one’s actually getting through at all right now. Looks like there’s only two stations active, but there’s a crowd around the one and--dogs.” The corner of his mouth curls, “Either it’s broken or they found something they were looking for.”

Inconsiderate jerks. You let out a breath through hissed teeth, relaying the information to a particular flower-named young lady who promptly returned a message of _Probably found drugs. Or bombs. Or maybe it’s just a narratively contrived government conspiracy intended explicitly to make you miss your flight and block you from ever meeting with your long lost soulmate. A modern day set of star-crossed lovers. Who can say?_

Ha ha. Very funny Rose.

Hilarious.

“Are we at _least_ almost there???”

Bro shrugs.

“Maybe one more bend of the line.”

It takes about 12 more minutes and 32 seconds of awkward silence--which is putting you uncomfortably close to the hour mark and okay maybe Stevens had been right about getting in early--before shit starts moving, but christ at _least_ it’s moving.

Right before you get there, you can even see the break in the cordon ahead of you, things suddenly shift. The uniformed agents--the dude even has a _badge_ . Rad. You wonder if they’re _armed?_ It’s an innocent thrill of excitement that both excites and terrifies you. Because the kid in you thinks it would be _just_ like being in a movie if they were, but the rational sometimes intermittent part just quietly states that _you aren’t armed_ and _bro isn’t armed_ so you better not end up in any sort of confrontation because you’d just be up shit creek without even a _boat_ much less a paddle unless that paddle is you, doing your best flailing impression of a doggy paddle. Just perhaps less fluffy. And less cute--

Right, where were you going before your inner monologue got away from you? Oh yeah, _right_ before you got up there to the place of honor, the guard suddenly starts letting more and more people through. All total there’s five stations, it looks like they called for back up. You’re the last one through and the officer directs you to the station at the far end. One of the newly opened ones. You follow, and then stop, glancing back over your shoulder. Bro is there. Blocked by the cord. Watching you. You can feel his eyes boring into your back.

Someone’s yelling at you. Not unkindly, but you’re frozen in the center of the wide open space between the edge of the school of teeming dorys of all shapes and colors and sizes and the net waiting to haul you in.

Right. Right. Moving. Right.

You glance, what you hope is nonchalantly at the lane next to yours as you fitfully creep forward. The dude is dumping his bag into the conveyor thing. And taking his shoes off. And--fuck you can’t see now he’s gone. Okay Dave, you gotta wing it. Just be cool.

The lady working the machine frowns down at you as you swing your probably-gonna-apart-in-a-second-let’s-be-real backpack up over the small lip and into the waiting bay. There’s these plastic tubs there too, but you just shift nervously, if you’re gonna be nervous might as well play up the act for this stranger and maybe they’ll take pity on you and give you directions.

“Where’s your parents, kid?”

“Bro’s uh. Back there. They wouldn’t let him through.”

“Hm. Guardians are usually queued up with the kids, but you’ll just need to wait on the other side now. Take off your shoes and put them in one of those bins. Empty your pockets and sylladex in there too, if you could!. Then step through the scanner. It’ll be quick!”

You do; the bin filling up with red-banded shoes, phone, your actual camera, some other miscellaneous shit you forgot to take out of your sylladex, and even some fucking pocket lint because by gog you are going to be thurough about this shit. You are going to be so clean you even--not without hesitating but you _do_ do it--slip off your shades, blinking in the harsh overhead lights, and sliding them gently on top of your shoes. They stare up at you. Bro’s gaze on your back. Bro’s gaze in your face.

And then the lady reaches over and nudges them onto the rolly part of the conveyor and the box slides down. Out of sight. “Go through the scanner please!”

The next few minutes fly by. Nothing beeps. No alarms sound. The woman thanks you briefly for being a good kid before the next person in line arrives behind you and she needs to pay attention to them. You quickly gather up your things--smashing the shades back down on your face, stowing your shit while leaving the lint because you don’t need it anyway--before scurrying forward toward the outlet of the blocked off area. You hesitate a little ways away, turning around, loitering, automatically searching the net for his freakishly tall self--

The machines block your sight. You can’t find him. You keep scanning, but your back keeps prickling and then there’s someone _behind you--_

You don’t have a strife deck. Nothing falls into your waiting hand. The uniformed guard gives you a weird look and drops the hand that was about to fall on your shoulder down to his side, “You can’t wait here, sorry. You gotta keep moving. Here, come with me and I’ll wait with you.”

You’ve seen way too many movies about kids being left on their own, and even more about the follies of trusting unknown dudes in uniforms, even if there’s a shiny ass badge pinned to his chest. “Nah man it’s cool I think I see my bro over there! I’ll be good!”

You escape. You escape so smoothly you’re going to change your name to Bond, just minus the explosions and a hot babe or three, not that you’d be opposed to the later, you appreciate some peak movie level aesthetics even if you wouldn’t go so far as hang posters of them all over your wall like someone else you could mention. You clamp down on the rising panic because you didn’t catch the Gate number and you don’t know the first thing about where to look for Bro. Had he gotten ahead somehow? Would he expect you to remember and meet him there? If you went to someone and told you the destination could they point you in the right direction? _You_ were first, how the fuck would he get ahead of you? You would have at least gotten a glimpse unless he flash-stepped away in an effort to leave--maybe it was when you hesitated like a little baby or--

The air behind you is displaced. It sends your nerves screaming and the faint movement has the hair on the back of your neck standing on end. Before you could whirl a hand actually _does_ curl around yours, so the movement only results in a sharp jerk as you try to break the grip.

“Sorry I took so long.”

The grip is firm, and you look up, the pieces slotting together through your steadily panicking sponge of a battle-shrouded haze. Bro adjusts the strap on his bag, not releasing your hand. Instead he pulls you closer. You can’t believe he’s doing this. In front of an entire captive audience of random people with nowhere to go but into the fishing net. Pulling you into that warm spot right at his side and not letting you go. That’s.

That’s something.

Fuck.

“What’d you do stab someone?” Words. The words just drip out, condensing on the edge of your frazzled brain before collecting enough coherency and mass for gravity to pull those suckers down out of the clouds.

“Didn’t empty my sylladex into the container,” He rolls his eyes and starts moving, keeping that same death grip on your appendage. “Didn’t realize there were machines out there that could _read_ personalized subspace pockets.”

You just.

Okay.

It’s just.

His hand burns against yours. Hot and slick.

You don’t ask him to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It looked like the people who responded were evenly split, so I took the executive decision to compromise. It turns out that this WA arc is gonna be 10 scenes long. But 10 chapters felt like toooooo long. So each chapter will include one Dirk scene, and one Dave scene ^^ expect the next set next week.
> 
> ...You know, this isn't really an interlude in the conventional non-relevant definition. It's VERY relevant...


	52. [I1P3] Striders in the Sky

## Dirk > Transcend this Mortal Coil

Instead of existing on this plane, you try your best to just check out. You don’t even need to stop and think about exactly which definition of the word to use, both are ironically applicable to your current situation. You don’t _really_ want to be here, in this belly of a machine hurtling through the sky at speed over distances that make your headache. You don’t really want to be _here_ physically, trapped in this body, awake and aware as the seconds bleed into minutes into hours because you are torn between being _bored_ and being overstimulated just from the sheer number of sounds going on, between people talking and the roar of the engines, and the vibration of the entire closed system of an environment around you.

You want to shut down, but you can’t. You want intellectual stimulation, but you have none. You can’t talk to Davepeta--no wi-fi, you haven’t been able to get your application working over mobile data alone yet-- you can’t work on any of your projects, you’ve already read through the stupid safety placard three times, and the skymall and tourist trap advertisements twice that and you just…

Your brain is so goddamn full of fog right now you threaten to lose yourself in it and after hours of this shit you’re starting to think isn’t really the worst thing that could happen now, is it?

Dave wasn’t even an option for a potential distraction either, the kid dropped off quickly after the excitement of the take off wore off and the consequences of his lack of sleep caught up with him. You remember pausing on your trek to the bathroom in the middle of the night, still hearing the clacking of typing keys through the closed door. Nightmare? Or just excitement? You couldn’t say.

You didn’t ask. He didn’t tell.

Making small talk with the flight attendant hadn’t worked either, which after an hour of this shit you’d finally broken down and given a try since the only other people in easy speaking distance had slipped on a set of heavy headphones--which was a brilliant idea and you are insanely disappointed in yourself for not thinking about it. She’d asked if everything was going well, and you’d totally smoothly started throwing out questions about aeronautics and the history of flight and it went okay? Or you’d thought it was going okay, despite her clearly limited knowledge on the actual interesting details, until Dave roused enough from his nap to groan and snap at you to “buzz off and let them do their job jesus christ bro.”

After that you’d probably taken a half an hour to shove lift calculations through the abnormally sluggish processing unit you call a brain because it gave you something to do other than sit and stare stone-faced out the window, watching miles and miles of grasslands rolling beneath you and…

You tried to commit it to memory, overlaying such a sweeping landscape of tiny rivers and off-colored square plots that are probably farmland, and the distant specks of passing cities and towns, a spiderwebbing network of roads, all over the bleak, featureless future you grew up with and it’s humbling.

You’d seen the maps. You’d seen the pictures.

It’s different, flying over it all, even if it’s not under your own power. You’ve seen plenty of environments, preserved in their own little bubbles, from Jake’s green fields to Jane’s blue caverns, to your own poisonous green city…

But nothing like this, wide and sprawling and bleeding from one to another so seamlessly it looks natural, because it is and

Clouds swallow the ground, washing over it like a flood, leaving a wide expanse of white and grey and you

Tear your eyes away.

Settling back against the abnormally comfortable and cushy headrest and you try and let go. Try and find that weight that allows you to sink inside yourself. You took some of the medicine shortly after boarding, but maybe it was the anxiety or the unconscious tension of being in an unfamiliar, potentially _unsafe_ space _unarmed_ (and dude that was an uncomfortable feeling you are _not_ going to parse right now. nope.) but it does fuckall for you and here you are, reaching for the weird recesses of your soul that you’ve gotten glimpses of, so dark and deep and drenched in red threads and--

Your mental probe finds _nothing._ You feel light. Floating. Free and exposed at the same time. Ash scattered, leaving nothing but grey echoing emptiness.

Recoiling back to the surface, you search the back of your eyelids for the broken world and you find nothing more than a thin spiderweb of cracks, shadow on black, the last flicker of red long since faded. They look so much like staring into cracked, burnt glass. Inert. Dead, where life once persisted. You still don’t know what the hell they are, but you know you can fall into them and you’ll be safe. Safe from _him._ Safe from yourself. And now you can’t fucking reach them when you need it?

Fuck. Well. Maybe it had something to do with the distance? You’d left Lil’Cal at home, afterall. Maybe without the puppet’s proximity your stupid unreliable powers felt they didn’t need to pry open those depths in order to access that insulated space. Or maybe--

The follow up thought slips through your fingers. Something feels off to you. There’s something missing. Something different. It’s...wrong. It feels wrong in your head. You haven’t felt so damn cotton stuffed in _months_ , keenly aware of the mental disconnect between your immediate thoughts and long-term storage even if you have no idea what to do about it. It’d been going so well, and you’d been getting shit organized and…

Some of it is probably the anxiety; the low-key panic that still thrums in your blood after hours of being trapped on this flight. You shove it away messily, forcing it to join with the constant roaring and pressure in your ears that you are very pointedly not acknowledging.

The window was a much better distraction than this shit, so you lean back against the curved plastic, the soft ambient light refracting through a brilliant clear blue sky you haven’t seen since you’d last stood on your rooftop well over 8 months ago, and 400 years ahead. Some time must have passed, or the weather system had been a fast moving one, because instead of clouds you see, far, far below you, that same morning light spreading fingers across brown-grey wrinkled stone. Hills and crevices and valleys--a far cry from the grasslands you’d been flying over earlier. You find yourself disappointed to have been robbed of the transition.

_I’m seeing under the water. To a dead world._

...maybe you aren’t quite ready to look at that yet, feeling that same crawling dread creep into your thoughts. You reach into your sylladex. The muttered command must have woken Dave because, while the seats aren’t _quite_ touching, they _are_ right next to each other. This is a luxury, you’ve come to learn, having gotten a glimpse of the rest of the plane beyond the curtain, where people are packed in three to a row, and maybe even _two_ rows to your one. “Perks” of the “upgrade” you assume. An upgrade you _hadn’t_ requested…

It’d taken an embarrassingly long time for the conclusion to drift through your mind, circling and coalescing out of half-formed pieces, but it did eventually loom out of the fog like your apartment rising out of the sea.

You have a suspect. ONe with a history of careful, quiet consideration for your hangups and idiosyncrasies in a way that downright _unnerves_ you.

This was bad enough, the thought of being crammed in back there…

You aren’t sure if you could have survived that. Not with how long these legs are/ You can _feel_ them cramp just _thinking_ about it. It’d been a problem you hadn’t considered at all when you’d selected Economy because it made sense to not need to spend more than necessary...and yet…

Newt _had_ needed your boarding pass for something, and he hadn’t told you _why._

Cagey little shit.

You wonder how long he’s been doing little things without asking like this. You wonder if Dave’s bro had ever bothered to notice, or if he’d just decided to ignore it.

“Bro…” A quiet hiss brings you back, damn. This was one situation where you were totally content drifting free from the physical plane like that. Dave’s drowning in his oversized chair, but he wriggles a little in the tightened seatbelt to face you, “No go on the phone bro. Keep it off. I think the one lady is holding a grudge over your attempted intellectual interrogation earlier. While you were off in la la land I whipped mine out to play a game of snake and she was all up on it immediately like “no games dawg” and I was like “well what else am I supposed to do for another hour or this artificial digestion” and she was all like “I’m sorry kiddo but that’s the rules” all super sweet and saccharine like. I don’t much want her coming back, ya dig?”

_Phone…?_

Oh. You _do_ have your phone in your hands. Right. You’d pulled it out of your sylladex. You give him a halfhearted shrug and depress the button to power the device on.

He lets out an exaggerated sigh with a muttered, “I warned you bro” which had you wanting so badly to fill in the next line because you know that reference, even if it didn’t actually exist yet. And maybe, it never would?

You don’t _know_ when this Dave would have begun that masterpiece, if he has, or has not. Maybe booting his bro out of the timeline and throwing shit into chaos had disrupted the delicate balance of creativity required to conceive of the lives of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff.

It’s a horrifying thought, and the mere _notion_ of unintentionally robbing the world of your brother’s brilliance cause a very real physical reaction of your gut recoiling in pain and horror. You have very little idea of what he does all day in his room, aside from chatting with his friends. Maybe you should try and encourage creative outlets? You still have to find something for Christmas, and you’re already eyeing a drawing tablet for Davepeta…

You make a mental note, but it ends up getting lost in the jumbled mess that is your indexing system right now so you aren’t actually sure you’ll ever see it again. But at that point your phone screen has resolved into the mass of colors and abstract shitty photoshop that makes up the background on the tiny screen. You draw your knees up to your chest before you realize how awkward that feels in this unfamiliar--despite you putting your best asscheek impression into the seat for 4 hours, if the time on your phone is right--chair. Instead you decide to shift to put your back to the curved tubular wall, rearranging your legs so you’re in some semblance of a position that gives you the same sense of pressure and comfort, before you settle in and flip through your phone.

Your thumb hovers over the directional button when the cursor highlights the generic, graphicless square you’d chosen as the logo for your pesterchum application and…

You don’t have a connection. You know you don’t. But you still find yourself hitting the select key on the keypad instead of moving on. You look over the green and orange text that loads up after a moment--even if it’s offline, you’d directed it to save the logs locally--but for now at least, they offer you something to chew on. You think back to the plain black text that had been your only option back in the first build, and you find you’re _proud_ to see the orange and green. It’s a success. A tiny one, but a success none the less.

It’s not very far for you to find the moment they made it home. It was late this morning, the high pitched ding of your phone notifying you while you lay awake watching the shadows play across the ceiling and running through multiple mental checklists to make sure you’d done everything. _Had_ everything ready. That this was, indeed, happening.

dataJammer [DJ] began pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< whats that thing that people say in the animes  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< when they toe their shoes off and toss bags on the ground and shout as loud as their lungs could conceivably handle waking up every single ghost and zombie within a five mile radius  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ta something or other  
timaeusTestified [TT]: tadaima  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yeah thats it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im surpurrised you knew that  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< was there a stash of animated porn films hidden away on some crappy server or somefang???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< people get real serious about their porn  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i imagine some apocalypse prepper couldnt stand the thought of living in a world post waifu era  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If you must know, your post-scratch self left me with a very comprehensive library of popular media. Plenty of audio, visual, and textual materials intended for education in various categories. Some were clearly for historical context and intellectual pursuits, but even more seemed purely for entertainment and...other areas.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Sorry, Dave’s post scratch self.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< nah brah i got you  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im too tired to figure out where yet another dave falls when plotted on the daviness scale of magnitude  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< besides i was still an orange feathered bird when that record got flipped so honestly i was even davier at the time so its not inaccurate  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< spiraling into purrceived irrelevance maybe  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but more assuredly still a bonafide dave  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< a dave is a dave is a dave you know  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< just cuz i go by a different name doesnt mean i still aint a dave somewhere sometimes in some places and state of minds  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m not even sure if those are even sentences right there, much less ones that make sense. You realize your sense of identity is even more convoluted than mine, right? I’m the one who is supposed to tear myself apart for shits and giggles.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ah welcome to the dance of daves where we kickflip betw33n timelines and casually drop cherry bombs into the toilets and sick beats into the unsuspecting sl33per and then blame it on a future dave because thats something we legit can do  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or could  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the tables have turned and passed on and with them i guess i turned in my timecard long ago  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hush im tired  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I didn’t even say anything.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you were gonna i saw you twitch  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im just standing here blinking blearily down at the mess i left of my pile  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< shit just thrown everywhere  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< stuffing bl33ding out all over the floor  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its like a plush crime secen up in here those cushions never had a chance against razor sharp desperate troll claws  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< wheres tz when you n33d her shed sniff out the culprit and then roast em with her sick dragon breath  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< oh wait thatd be me oops  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< lock me up and throw me befur his honorable tyranny guilty as charged sentencing will be in two days  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< do you think two days will be enough  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i just want to sl33p befur im culled is that too much to ask  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< have a propurr catnap  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< why am i so tired  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i thought gods didnt n33d sl33p  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< my afterlife is a lie  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m afraid I never really had the time to test the limits of deific stamina since shit quite literally hit the fan after I ascended. As someone who lived as their dreamself singularly, and with the dream selves of...actually I think Jake was the only one who got his actual body through the clusterfuck of a tutorial.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I can confidently say that while the constructed bodies don’t require sleep to fulfill its biological function, the mind often would begin to crave it upon being put under undo stress or prolonged periods of wakefulness.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Correct me if I’m wrong, but the last several hours have had you weaving in and out of adjacent timestreams and likely unstable spatial pockets as well. That sounds like a very stressful situation.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...okay yeah but knowing that doesnt really solve my lack of places to propurrly crash here  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thisll take furever to fix  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Take mine.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< im not just gonna kick your snoozing tail out so i can avoid cleaning up my messes  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m giving you permission. Throw my body out, or leave it there, I don’t care. Just get some rest.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< …  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i refuse to kick you out but i guess if i shove the remnants of mine over theres enough space without potentially getting too scandalous  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< do you mind if i…  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you said you were hurt  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Sleep first.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< can i at least pr33n you???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< until i fall asl33p???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its relaxing  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and your hair is a mess im sitting on my hands to stop them from acting on their own thats how bad it is  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< epic case of bed head man  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i can already tell you haven’t b33n sl33ping well  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< four months of tossing and turning and no one here to sooth shit and make sure you don’t develop a rats nest  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Okay.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< what really???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Yes.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If I’m being transparent, I’m nervous as fuck about tomorrow. I could use the support if you’re offering.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< aw yeah full purrmission??? now ill be totes too stoked to sl33p prepare fur a one way tickitten for good f33lings town!! B33

dataJammer [DJ] ceased pestering timaeusTestified [TT]

They’d barely lasted twenty minutes. You remember that, and it makes you want to smile inside. Thinking back over it, you wonder at the timing, allowing them to reenter your stream _right_ before you and Dave were set to head out. You hadn’t thought much of it, but then again your entire _existence_ is the result of one long series of weird events as paradox space shifts and folds to spit things and people out at just the right moment. It reminds you of waking up in a field of dead stars, following a thread out of your body and into another’s. After dealing with these bullshit hallucinations for so long--it’s almost been as long for you now as you’d spent in the game with your friends, and if that doesn’t make your stomach clench you don’t know what will --you’re starting to recognize when heart-based splinter bullshit is messing with you. It led you there. You specialize in ripping yourself to shreds, maybe, but you also acknowledge that you _cling desperately_ to those pieces.

Even ones you hate.

While you appreciate the effort, no one else can handle the monumental pile of horseshit the disparate pieces of yourself had a knack of throwing out to smell.

Davepeta had chosen the Heart, their identity, when clinging to life when the world fell apart. They’d chosen it again on that stone slab and they were reborn, but you entertain the notion that perhaps Time was loath to unhook its claws from its knight entirely.

## Dave > Make this Happen

You feel like you’re on fucking fire right now.

Not even in a bad oh god help me im burning to death stop drop and roll throw yourself into the nearest river or bathtub or even a puddle, way. No, it’s more as if the fire has lit itself under your somewhat sore posterior and you just feel this _need_ to just get up and _move._ But you can’t, not even to take the somewhat lackluster route down the thin arteries of this bird to scenic St John, where the John isn’t the John you know, but the _john._ Not much to see there, just people. A _lot_ of unhappy people if you happened to peek your head through the curtain to see the plebeians crammed into the back, which you had.

The _reason_ you can’t even use that destination for your bringing feeling back comeback tour was a clear sounding _ding!_ going off somewhere above your head, and an announcement being broadcast over the intercom. At least it’s almost over. The countdown you have going on is under an hour until the expected arrival and you just can’t _wait._ It’s time for this giant metal turkey to loosen its bladder and let you _slide_ into a puddle onto some sweet egbert-inspired statuary. You consider where the best landing zone would be. His hair? His glasses? Eh, it doesn’t really matter does it. The point is you’re _here_. Almost. Now you just _know_ the last--it’s not even a leg it’s a fucking _toe--_ of this trip is going to be torturous.

Ugh. Each second _pulls_ at you. Resonating in your bones. You feel like you should be vibrating but you’re not. Or at least you don’t think so. Not any more than the plane itself is, being hurtled through the air at unimaginable speeds bouyed on fucking nothing but air and it’s freaking amazing if you look outside your own little bubble with it’s small bumps and metallic buzzing roar and the popping in your ears that had you playing with the sensation for a good twenty minutes on take off.

That same flight attendant passes, checking trays and seats and who knows what else on her way up to the nose of the plane. You expect a scowl and a comment on Bro’s phone but there’s nothing, because the sneaky bastard has nothing in his hands. Just a quick glance and she’s gone.

That doesn’t fit with your narrative at all, and you are _annoyed._ You were kinda hoping Bro’d get politely reprimanded the way you did. Maybe even _stiffly_ given he’s the one who’d gone off and quizzed her on the physics of aviation. Now you’ll need to put away your imaginary popcorn for another time.

He’s all but abandoned that uncomfortable looking position he’d contorted himself into at some point, going back to the previously resting position against the window again. But, it’s--a little different now? Enraptured by the view outside beyond the glass and its sliding plastic cover.

He _is_ enraptured, that’s the kicker. And not in the way he’d been emulating a jackrabbit earlier, paying attention to everything and nothing, pushing back against Stevens’ frankly sickeningly obvious attempts do something _nice_ with some sort of exasperated paranoia _. That_ was nerves. Even if you still have trouble wrapping your head around it, you’ve come to accept that…

No, you can’t even bring yourself to think it.

You get a different feeling now. This isn’t the stillness of barely controlled panic, but the stillness of a predator with every fiber of its being focused on its prey. Watching. Steadying. Waiting to strike. It’s so familiar you can see into the past, back lit by the setting sun and liquid fire coating the edge of his blade, face cast in shadow by a brim of a hat and the shades you now wear. A glimpse of the man he’d once been and sometimes…

You kinda miss.

Sometimes.

But...it isn’t just the roof. It’s also him scrunched like a gargoyle in his chair, fingers flying over the keyboard in a near constant stream of taps. The moments when you’re so sure you could have an impromptu rave in the room and he’d barely even notice. An intensity that was directed _at_ you that night, when his _everything_ was focused on you, and the fire burned in his eyes and he told you he _wasn’t going anywhere_ and you believed him.

For better or for worse,both crumbling and unmovable, _that_ was your brother.

...and you find yourself hella curious to know what _exactly_ was going through his head that would cause _that_ kind of expression when you’ve literally been living in snoozeville for four hours and twenty minutes. You squint through the daylight, filtered as it was through the black of your lenses, curiosity warring with the common sense of any respectable creature with a working self-preservation instinct as you inch yourself toward the thick armrest/cupholder/reading table/whatever the fuck it was, trying to see what has him so enraptured.

Of course you can’t see anything. You’re flying some tens of thousands of feet up, and you are at all the wrong angles to be able to see much aside from like, clouds. Which were pretty damn awe inspiring when you imagined that you could reach out and poke the damn things. You think about swirling them around your finger like some non-artificial version of whipped cream, nudging them into different shapes and sculpting them and leaving a giant honking dong in the sky and it almost makes you giggle. It’s fun enough to deface the tarts Bro likes to bring home, but this was a _much_ wider scale than _that._ It’d be like pranking the whole sky.

That draws you back into your dreams. Daydreams? You’ve drifted in and out all flight, never sure if you actually fell asleep or if you’re just pretending _you’re_ the one flying through the sky, rocketing through the air, wind in your hair, shades the perfectly round size to block any stray bugs and particles from being flung into sensitive eyeballs. The sun in your face, hot, too hot, a green fire billowing out around you, flickering and pulsing, the force of the explosion propelling you outwards, there’s someone by your side, a hand in yours. Smaller, nails painted black, you turn to greet them, orange hood pulled down low and--

“Did you want to look?”

Bro’s voice smashes the daydream like glass, breaking it into pieces so tiny that they slip through your fingers. Sharp enough to draw blood, red droplets pooling against pale skin only to--

Nothing. Okay. You’re still staring at the marshmallow dotted baby blue sky beyond Bro’s face, only Bro’s turned toward you, the burnt orange of his eyes visible as he quirks an eyebrow at the apparent intensity you’d been throwing at the world beyond the window. Heat blossoms and you suck in a breath, tension winding through your shoulders and tweaking them like you’ve got a little key stuck back there and it turns and turns and turns every second longer those eyes linger on you.

“Couldn’t if I wanted to,” You swallow any chances of a direct answer in favor of a circular one, because you can’t ever do things the easy way and you’re panicking, a slave to your nerves which seems to think the best defense is a cascade of half nonsense and all totally artfully crafted bullshit. It probably was. “You heard the lady, seatbelts buckled, safety first, do not leave your seat on pain of pursed lips and disapproving scowls no matter how much your bladder presses against your spleen and makes you want to get up and do a dance routine all the way home.”

That was a good one you think. That deserves a fist bump.

You haven’t gotten one of those rare ironic fist bumps in a long time, one of the few nuggets of affection you’d grown to covet, but Bro wasn’t acting normal. _Hadn’t_ been acting normal in ages. Or maybe he was and this weird Bro who tenses at a wilting violet like _Stevens_ is the new normal. The one in front of you, back lit by the daylight from the tiny porthole cut into the side of a metal monster. The one who sighs and shakes his head at you. Who stifles a snort under his breath.

Those lips quirk, a small rare smile that you _never_ see that steals your breath and makes your mind run in circles like a tiny little hamster stuck in its ball unable to figure out if it should screech to a halt or wheel even faster. “Disapproving scowls don’t mean anything unless they notice; just don’t go running screaming down the aisle and you’ll be fine.”

You have further protests dancing on the tip of your tongue, but then you see it, something _else_. Something different from the clouds. Something solid.

Bro tilts his head, considering, before even his eyes shift back to the window. And--

Fuck it. You pull up on the metal flap to release the belt and slide out of the seat. The plane vibrates beneath your feet and you feel yourself sway, but it’s not bad at all, especially since you can brace yourself against the seat in front of you. You cross the space and with a nervous glance at him, squeeze yourself around and between his long legs, pressing your nose up against the glass, plastic, whatever it was it’s _cold_ and--

There it is, rising up out of a sea of clouds, a hole in the sky. A conical shape, grey and white and harsh black shadows. You remember how high the pilot said you were, and that _thing_ still looks so _big_ , looks like it’s just beyond the edge of your reach. The clouds shift and drift along currents of air, allowing you to see more beneath the surface, not so tall but so so wide and straining against the earth and trying to climb higher and higher.

You forget yourself. You forget to breathe. You ignore the sudden burning of the light as you push your shades up into your hair in order to feast your watery baby eyes on the full colors of a giant fucking _snow covered_ mountain in the morning, so big and tall you feel like you can reach out and place your tiny little finger against its top.

You wonder if it’s full of frogs.

Then you wonder why the fuck you’re thinking about _frogs._

You’ve seen worlds from space, you’ve seen hell, you’ve seen polygonal broken cesspits full of doritos, but for some reason this single mountain in one range in one spot on earth that probably isn't even all that captivates you in a way you can’t explain. It’s no Everest. You’ve heard of Everest _. Everyone’s_ heard of Everest. Everest kills people. Eats them for breakfast. You’re pretty sure this dinky ol’ mountain hasn’t killed anyone worse off than like, maybe some hiker got lost in the blanket of pines and firs or--you rack your brain looking for another kind of tree but like why would anyone expect you to know its not like you took one look at the tiny homogenous looking forest of green and went oh yeah that’s a douglas fir for sure.

But _still_ , you can see beneath the clouds in patches and see the evergreen forests spreading down the mountains and little clearings and clusters of things you _swear_ are probably houses and gog everything looks so fucking _small_ from up here. You want to bust open that window and crawl out to the edge of the plane and hang there, cape billowing in the wake of the plane and red sneakers pressing against the metal edge and just _stare._

The plane lurches beneath you and you stagger forward, catching yourself against Bro’s long legs, and a hovering hand is around your arm so fast you wonder if he developed some new flash _grab_ to go with the flash step, but between you and him, you steady, and he’s saying something but you don’t quite process it until he repeats it again, probably twice.

The ding overhead goes off and the warning plays again and you just turn to look up at him, unshielded eyes just blinking in some stupid state of numb confusion

“Do you want the seat?” Bro’s already clicking his seatbelt off, but he can’t move with you braced against his legs, “You’ll be able to watch until we land. If it’s anything like take-off it’s pretty awesome to see.”

“...What about you???”

That...wasn’t what you wanted to ask, but it’s what came out. Okay. Cool. The plane lurches again. It feels like you drop a foot and your stomach races to catch up. Turbulance. Rough air. Right, The reason for the request to stay in your seat is because the plane decides it wants to fucking fall, that’s just peachy.

Bro doesn’t answer, but things _shift._ One minute he’s in front of you, the next you’re sitting smack dab in the middle of his hastily vacated butt warmth, clicking the seatbelt shut and tightening it to fit with your much smaller frame.

Oh. Okay cool. You can just. Roll with this. You guess. Bro’s back in _your_ old seat by the time the flight attendants make one last round as the pilot gives another speech on local time this and descending into that and hope you fly again with us sometime! It’s the same flight attendant, and she gives your swapped selves a stern _look_ like she knows what you did, but she can’t say anything since you’re both buckled in and your trays are tabled.

Bro doesn’t even look the slightest bit concerned, he’s completely turned away from her, using his superior height to return to watching the mountain move slowly along the horizon. You’re a little miffed that he’s able to just _do_ that, just casually peer over your head like moving didn’t bother him one little bit. You’d barely been able to see the clouds much less the more distant mountains.

Fine then. You deserve this spot more anyway.

Before too long you let yourself get drawn back into the magic. Pressing your nose against the glass in a way you’d probably hope was blocking his vision if you weren’t far too preoccupied to care. It wasn’t even the one mountain, which was moving further away, there were _more_ . The broken cloud cover let you glimpse smaller peaks below the clouds, twisting trails, a whole fucking landscape just barely down there that you’ve never even _seen_ before.

“When the ice caps melt, these would all be islands.” You hear the quiet words behind you, “Do you think anyone would be able to survive on them?”

“That’s fucking morbid, Bro,” You glance at him out of the corner of your eye, just barely slipping the skeptical look behind the solid edge of the fame. He shrugs in that barely-more-than-a twitch way you’re used to.

“It’s a valid question.”

“I don’t think there’s that much water in those there ice caps bro,” He shrugs again and you lean against the wall, thinking over the question, it sounds so far-fetched it might as well be a pokemon but its not like you’d know shit like that. All you know is that’d take a lot of ducking water. “Assuming you’re right and you somehow got enough water to turn the damn things to islands... Depends on how much warning people got, I guess?”

He nods slowly and you feel oddly like you passed some sort of a test? Hell if you knew _what_ the test was, but his eyes aren’t on you anymore. You expect that to be the end of it, since time passes and there's a whirl of mechanical sounds from the belly of the plane as the pilot announces landing procedures or somethin. You don’t know. It’s not like you speak plane.

Bro isn’t done with you yet.

“There wouldn’t be any.”

You almost miss it as the airplane banks, moving your view away from the islands--damn it bro now you can’t unsee the blanket of clouds as some sort of deep as fuck ocean. You suppress a scowl. What was the point in giving you the window if he wasn’t even going to let you enjoy it?

“Dude, it sounds like a very specific fantasy you got going on in there. I can’t see inside your head to decode the exact circumstances it would require for those fucking mountains to fit the definition of an island, and therefore the survival rate of any hypothetical hikers who happen to be out on a nature crusade at any given time, so either give me more info or let me look out the fucking window.”

He seems to pick option B because he goes silent. So silent you start to wonder if you broke him. You almost feel a little tiny miniscule smidgeon of satisfaction which is quickly smothered by guilt because he’d been trying to engage with you and you just cruelly shut the dude down, but even those don’t last because you suddenly and terrifyingly realize _you just shut the dude down._

You shut _Bro_ down.

It wasn’t even a gentle one, it was a full blown “stfu and leave me ALONE.” and maybe not exactly in those words but, you were already on thin ice from…

Earlier.

Fuck you did this _earlier._ With the flight attendant--

You can’t focus on the way the clouds are getting closer, at how the plane is obviously circling. You just shut down _Bro._ Twice! You want to peek at him but you’re afraid at what you see. The space between your shoulderblades itches and you squirm, barely noticing there’s this giant fucking lake sparkling in the sun and maybe even a _city_ and you really should be _revited_ by the sight and you’re not because you’re trying not to panic that maybe this would be the time you’d pushed too far and he’d be angry.

The ghost of his eyes on your back follow you as the plane roars and the ground rushes up beneath you, and you can’t even fucking enjoy it _can you_ because you just had to go and mouth off, you’re lucky he doesn’t just drag you to the roof for a strife and--

There’s a hand on your shoulder. You snap up. It’s Bro, sans seatbelt. You _missed_ the _landing_! You’re furious with yourself, with bro, with your own traitorous internal clock for running several minutes ahead. The people around you are gathering up their things, getting ready to leave. His hand tightens on your shoulder and you stiffen.

But he just releases you with a subdued, “Let’s go. Egbert should be waiting for us by the baggage claim.”

You hate this.

You know he’s giving you looks as you grab your bag from him, shrugging it over your shoulders and onto your back. You refuse to say anything. You _can’t_ say anything. You feel the ice creeping up your chest and your throat and you just _can’t_. He takes your hand as you debark the plane, and you don’t struggle. You just follow silently.

You don’t even think you can blame him for this. You’re the one who screwed up, who let your damn emotions get away from you. Shoulda shut that shit down. What did it matter if Bro antagonized the flight attendant over your head? What did it matter if he wanted to discuss some random ass disaster scenario? You could have just tuned him out instead of…

You lose another three minutes.

Then five.

The last time the number slips away from you because--

“DAVE!” The breath is physically and literally knocked out of you as something--someone barrels head first into you, and would have straight up tossed you clean off your feet if you hadn’t subconsciously sensed the approach and braced yourself. Even then you’re strangely aware of another support along your back before you get a faceful of black hair as one John Egbert throws himself into your slack arms.

Just then something clicks into place. Your heart in your throat, your vision blurring, you just squeeze him. You squeeze him so tight you don’t want to--can’t let go. All the frustration and fear mixing up in with longing and the knowledge that right here was someone you were afraid you’d never see-- _again--_ and that makes no fucking sense since you’re meeting him for the first time right here and now and you are definitely not crying. It’s the air. It’s gotta be. You’re so used to Houston’s code-red smog count that Washington’s crystal clear air quality leaves your jaded peepers flailing in the wind screaming because they don’t know how to deal. A totally inconsiderate small brush of non-tear jerked moisture pools in the folds of your skin, safely hidden behind dark lenses.

“You look even more ridiculous than I imagined in those glasses, dude! They don’t fit your face at all!” But John is laughing. He’s smiling. And you find you’re smiling right back as he pulls away enough for you to take in his face. You’ve never seen it before and yet you’d know that fucking face anywhere with the dorky square glasses, bright blue eyes, birdsnest of a black hair framing a dark brown face and too overly large white teeth.

“You clearly have no sense of appreciation for rad eyewear, Egbert, since you have the gall and say that while sporting those giant granny squares perched on your nose,” You disentangle one hand from where it’d been buried into the fabric of his shirt--just a graphic tee with some movie promo on it. You--you know what it is, of course, it’ll come to you eventually--and try to poke him squarely on the nose. Only its awkward as hell because of how close you are, so you just end up pushing your palm against his stupid round squishy grinning baby cheeks in an effort to extricate yourself, “Jesus bro, some space please, I’ve been emulating an admittedly privilaged restless anchovy for _hours_ this dude needs some fu--uuh air,”

 _Language_ . Bro’s mild teasing echoes in your mind and you realize the large hand stabilizing your back has vanished, taking with it the constant prickle of _bro’s right there_ whenever you were in the same room as the dude. You hadn’t even noticed. John is just a storm. A fucking tornado drawing you in and spitting you out with a cheerful laugh and one last squeeze for good measure before he releases you, grabbing your hand and bodily dragging you forward, in a way that really shouldn’t be happening because you’re his size and you’re planted. Or you were, because you definitely aren’t now.

Actually, he’s a little smaller, a little pudgier, but that doesn’t seem to stop him from sweeping you along in his wake. You look ahead of where he’s heading at something within you releases the tense breath it was holding because you see Bro’s dumb hair just ahead, edging out of maintained and back towards its more natural roosting state. His back is to you, obviously talking with a slightly shorter guy with a stern face, prominent nose, and a hat so sharp you could cut a dude with that shit. Bro looks weird, posture off and stiff, hands shoved into pockets that are supposed to be decorative bro god don’t you even fashion--

“This is gonna be soooo awesome, Dave, you’ll see! The best birthday ever! Rose is coming tomorrow but until then we can--oh maybe we can watch a movie! I’ve got a huge collection of classics, I’m sure we could find _something_ in there that matches up to your uncultured viewing habits--”

“Oi watch it Pot, half the shit you send me is totally cheesy garbage.” You shoulder check him, not really gently at all but he just rolls with it. You thought this would be weird, having a face to put to that name and cadence of blue text on a screen but it’s not. It’s not at all. It’s like you go to put that shit on the frame titled John Egbert and find it was there all along.

“If you think _ConAir_ is cheesy garbage we’re going to need to start your education over from the beginning, because that opinion is so wrong it isn’t even funny. Do you even _watch_ movies?? Aside from kiddie shows like Finding Nemo--”

“Woah there John, bro, chum, pal, friendo--don’t you be putting down Nemo okay? Its got a special fish shaped place in my heart of cold steel, melting all that ice with heartwarming family bonding and shit--”

He drags you right up to his dad who takes your bag and slings it casually other his arm as if it were some lady’s coat with a warm, “It is nice to finally meet you, Dave.” and giving no care to your half-hearted protest, it’s not like your valuable shit is in there, sylladex or bust when it comes to that, but shit like clothes and toiletries are a pain to sort through when you throw them together in cards. “I’ve heard a lot about you from John.”

“Whatever it was I didn’t do it,” They words spill outt of you before you recognize you even thought them, and then you can feel yourself go cherry fucking red god, was this the kind of impression you wanted to give your best friend’s dad??? Especially when you legit thought he thought you were some internet creepo up until like a couple weeks ago??? Come on Dave, don’t start seasoning up your sneakers quite yet.

He’s not quite as tall as Bro, but between the pressed shirt and Actual tied tie and angular hat you find yourself intimidated anyway. And envious. You want to look like that some day, it’s fly as fuck and looks so cool. Maybe throw a full blown suit jacket on yours though, and then you’d be rocking the full blown super spy aesthetic.

You don’t know if it’d look right with these shades though, maybe John was right and you needed another shape? These are full on anime protag, while you would probably want something a bit more suave and slick. Something to think about, eventually. It’s not like Bro is _that_ cool anymore, given how you’ve watched the stalwart bastion of coolty fall apart in front of you these last few months after--

Fuck that. You are _not_ thinking that. Bro is Bro. You’re supposed to be coming up with something witty and suitibally impressive to follow up that complete and utter dud of a line--something more interesting than a “nice to meet you too sir,” that doesn’t make you sound like a deranged feral child with no filter, you’re derailed by a rumbling laugh.

Shit you took too long. This is what happens when you don’t follow your gut and just let it go, then you miss _all_ the good opportunities.

“I believe his words painted the picture of a creative, smart, and interesting young man, none of which is something to be denying as if you’d been caught with a crumb covered hand in front of an empty cookie jar.” He shoots a smiling glance in the direction of his son, “You and the young lady LaLonde have been all he’s talked about to me for oh, almost two months now?”

“Daaaaaaaad! Stop it!” John groaned, letting go of your arms and pressing his face into his hands, you can’t quite tell if there’s a blush going on there, but you know the heat in _your_ face shows no signs of tamping down any time soon. It’s so hot up in here you could probably scramble an egg on it. He stomps over and insists on taking your bag from his dad, which kinda makes you go aw and melt a little, huffing.

You can’t just let this go. You physically _can’t._

“I’m touched you think so highly of me John. Really. Truely. Warmth curling down the very tip of my tippy toes. It’s nice to see someone appreciates how unabashedly awesome I am,”

Imagining John squirm has _nothing_ on actually seeing the real thing, as the other boy smacks you on the arm and tells you to, “Knock it ooooooooff already. Open that mouth too wide and we’ll all see exactly how uncool you actually are. I know all your secrets!”

You gasp, clutching your heart like a dame about two steps away from fainting with shock, “My dear Egbert, how _could_ you be so uncooth as tell your _father_ the sordid details of our youthful, passion filled midnight trysts on school nights, nothin’ on but our colored words on a white page, all lit up by the soft orange light and smiling face of pesterchum!”

“Goooooood shut up Dave! I didn’t think it would be possible to talk more ridiculous than you type. How can you even _say_ stuff like that with a straight face?” He swats at you again, “and it wouldn’t be just my Dad! Your brother’d get to hear all about ‘em too!”

You freeze. You’d almost--

He’d moved, no longer standing beside Mr Egbert. A couple feet away, hanging back, keeping an eye on the people moving through the space beyond your little group. If he’s listening, you can’t tell. But you know he’s listening anyway. You swallow any retort you had and turn back to John’s Dad, who watched the exchange with something you wanna pin down somewhere between amused, shading towards mildly concerned when you mentioned _school nights_ which maybe makes you internally wince, maybe you shouldn’t have ratted John out like that. It’s not his fault your sleep schedule is wack, although you do try to direct the super late night shit toward the Church of Lalonde.

You’re the paragon of a considerate friend. And considerate friends do not keep friends up passed their parental mandated bed-time. You’ll need to find a way to slip Dad-bert a note or something before you leave. You _were_ being facetious.

Mostly.

“Really though, thanks a lot Mr. E” Mr. E. Mystery. Dad-bert, especially with his hat throwing that ever present shadow over his face, really does look like all he’d need is one fly tech-laden suit and he’d be off stealing government secrets. Maybe you should sprinkle some sincerity now, “It’s totally cool of you to let us hang out like this I mean woah, halfway across the country for a fu--uhn birthday party how cool is that???”

“Someone,” There’s a pause, “told me that this will be your first birthday party. Is that true?”

You shoot John a look, because you _know_ that was something you’ve mentioned to him, especially after that disastrous afternoon that had a paper ball flying at your head where Bro made you reflect on how much you had _no idea_ what kids would actually _want_ for their birthday. John plays dumb, shaking his head exuberantly in an effort to convince you he wasn’t the one to spill the cans of crazy juice all over the floor. You just shrug, pretending it didn’t bother you.

“Nope. I mean yes, it’s true, nope I’ve never had a party before. I mean _how_ would I have a party??? Before a few months ago the only people I woulda ever invited would be me, myself, and I and maybe Bro if he bothered to drop out of stealth mode for a while and wanted to spend time with a whiny kid. This is the first time I’ve had friends I actually wanted to, and have the opportunity to hang with like actual bros and I--”

You take a breath, your lungs burning, and reach out to take John’s hand and squeeze, “Thank you. For trusting me. That I wasn’t like. Some weirdo killer dude. Thank you. Really.”

John’s hand tenses in yours, and then he squeezes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :'3c
> 
> ...It's a good thing I didn't go for the all in one chapter eh? I've already added a 6th chapter, and the 5/12 scenes I already have are nearly the same length as chapter 50 LOL
> 
> I hope you like character based shenanigans because that's pretty much all the next four chapters are. 
> 
> On the next episode, we'll get some parental advice, and some quality time with a bff.


	53. [I1P4] A Matter of Taste

# Dirk > Heart to Heart

When the constant vibration of the car engine stops, you mentally allow yourself to uncurl and reconnect with the world outside this moving vehicle. Nearly all of your attention had been tuned into the Dave and John show, which never really got a commercial break, rambling from topic to topic in a way that makes you ache for that ease of communication. How long have they been talking? It sounds like years. Had they connected sooner than you? You hadn’t found Roxy’s protected segment of the net until you were about their age, and even then it’d taken Calliope another year before she would reach out and bring the rest of you together. 

They’re in the back seat, laughing and smiling out of sight. You close your eyes and listen, curled in on yourself, pretending to sleep. Mr. Egbert--unlike Newt--appears to be a quiet, focused driver, and not remotely inviting conversation or comment from your direction. 

Despite being a much longer trip distance wise in comparison to the small coffee shop less than fifteen miles from your apartment, there had been much less stopping and starting on the drive from the airport to your destination. Less places to idle and wait for lights, less traffic, perhaps that means less incentive to natter nervously at the person in the shotgun seat.

Or maybe John’s dad is a man of fewer words than Newt Stevens. It’s not like you have that large of pool of drivers to sample from. He does hum, you found out, following along to a radio that’s turned down too low for you to make it out more than background noise.

The area surrounding the now parked vehicle is very different from the one you live in. You hesitate to say you like it _better--_ it’s unfamiliar and even if the ocean is missing that apartment complex high in the sky and it’s stifling heat is _home_ \--but...it’s...nice.

It’s less crowded, more... _green_. Quieter.

God it’s so much quieter.

John and Dave can’t wait to get out of the car, with John bellowing a, “RACE YA” challenge that leads to them both tumble in a rush out of the car door closest to the house. You’re out of the vehicle and moving to intercept when you notice a particularly telling shift in Dave’s stance, but Mr. Egbert stops you with a raised hand, and then projects his voice after them, “Be careful boys!”

It means nothing. A futile plea falling on deaf or uncaring ears as Dave immediately tackles John into the grass when the boy attempts to cut across it to reach the door instead of taking the long way along the path.

Mr. Egbert sighs and gives you a Look. One you attempt to translate and fail, only to be pinned in place by the weight of his dark eyes until he breaks the moment with a faint shake of the head, returning his attention to the children--christ they actually are children--somehow the tables have turned and John is sitting on Dave’s back, smugly pinning your brother in place, but only for a second, because the moment he tries to make a run for the door, a hand shoots out and grabs him,  pulling him back down to the ground by the _ankle._  

“I wonder if they’ve considered that the door is locked,” John’s dad muses to--you? Himself? “We’ll likely need to wash young Dave’s shirt after this. Grass does terrible things to white clothes, but it’s good for them to work out some of that energy here, where there’s nothing for them to break.” 

Mr. Egbert-- _Dan_ . Jane’s _son._ You need to remember it, dig deep into the fog and stick a blinking light on the damn thing because it’s important to remember right now. It’s in your phone, has been since you spent hours quietly talking over the phone with him, making your clumsily presented case for this outing to him. 

It wasn’t that awkward initially. You’d had that shit all rehearsed and even written out on note cards, and you’d made it all the way through without a hitch. Your logic was sound, the plan reasonable--you’d even offered the pay for travel and room, what problem could there _possibly_ be?

Dan had listened, quietly, thoughtfully.

And said no, and you’d had to spend the next two hours in a _very careful_ negotiation with a voice on the other end of the line and make your case, and you didn’t even win because you are _here._ On his turf. Under his supervision. His rules.

He leaves you there, walking leisurely up the path. Dave has John in a headlock, both children’s set of eyewear knocked askew and glinting in the grass. Neither of them are paying attention, and all it would take was John to squirm free in just the wrong direction…

After a moment’s thought-- _should_ you do it? Is it worth the risk if you _don’t?_ But if you do are you going it just ruin shit again?--you wait until the _right_ moment, when Dan has his back to the debacle, and you take that _step._ Dave freezes, watering yet still brilliant red eyes snapping up to meet you as you settle right in front of them, although John still seems to be distracted by wheezing and trying to pry off Dave’s hold. 

You don’t look at them. Not directly. You only gather up the delicate eyewear from their nest of dew-wet grass, the moisture laden air preventing even the late morning sun from evaporating it entirely. One set of angular lenses, check, given to a younger brother when he broke his pair; one set of square clear ones. You briefly consider the ethics of absconding with something they both need to function to some degree, but the decision is made for you as Dave awkwardly releases John, who flops to the ground with a dramatic whine.

“Sorry bro…” The mumbled apology reaches you and you just shake your head, reaching out and carefully placing them on Dave’s head, sliding the ear pieces through his hair.

“Captchalogue them next time,” Is all you say, before placing the excess pair of glasses into his hand and taking that second _step._ The lock clicks as you land on Egbert’s porch, door swinging open to a _thankfully_ much dimmer house.

It’s…

Clean. That’s the first thing you think of, taking in the space as the door is pulled almost shut behind you, but not completely--you can still hear the boys outside. You linger in the small entryway, watching as Dan flicks on the overhead light and moves further into the room with yours bags over his arm. You don’t really pay much attention, taking in the diamond patterned area rug before a subdued patterned couch, taking in the, uh, artful, stained glass lamp on the table next to it, an umbrella held by a jester with a wild, multicolored hat and bells and painted faces. That seems to be a...theme, as you let your eyes linger briefly at the sparse pictures on the wall--nothing like the walls of your apartment before your Cal-induced paranoia led you to tear down most of the posters. And then…

“I’m going to put your things in the office for now, is that agreeable?”

You start, tearing your eyes away from the--just focus on him for now. He lingers in an archway near a set of swinging doors, regarding you across the room. “Yeah. That’s fine. I reckon we’ll figure out what happens with that later.”

“Indeed.”

And with that he vanishes into that archway, quietly taking the threadbare orange backpack and duffle out of sight. You let out a breath you didn’t realize you’ve been holding; a long hissing rush of air. Pushing a hand into your hair, squeezing, pulling just enough that the skin begins to ache. 

The door slams open behind you, and you _move_ , taking in the angles you remembered from the door, and dropping you in the corner of the room near a little curio cabinet full of statuettes. It’s not truly melting back into the shadows, since the space is pretty brightly lit despite the fire-place being cold--and you are _not_ thinking of the fireplace. Or what’s on it. Or what’s _above it._ You _aren’t._

There’s nowhere else to run as John drags Dave bodily through the entryway. Dan was right; Dave’s red and white shirt is smeared with green stains--you hope he brought a spare, you hadn’t thought to police his packing habits so you don’t actually know what he even _has_. That feels like a misstep.

The race appears entirely forgotten now; John having recovered his glasses, even if they perch crookedly on his nose. Dave’s hair is mussed, dirt brushed against his paper white face in a pattern you don’t quite recall from before, peeking out from where his eyes are hidden behind your shades.

...Maybe handing both to Dave had only served to provoke another scuffle. Oh well. They’re both alive. Egbert said it was fine.

...Right?

It is fine. You just. Need to not insert yourself into shit and ruin it and it’ll be dandy. You learn all that from a cursory glance and then do your best to seem utterly fascinated by the plethora of harlequins. These wouldn’t have fit Jane, they must be a John thing. Hadn’t Davepeta mentioned something about clowns before?

“C’mon, I gotta show you my room, dude. It’s _awesome_ ! I’ve got this like, magic chest full of hilarious hijinks and I think I got some glasses that’ll fit you _way_ better than those lameo ones.”

“Yeah yeah lead the way, jeezus John not so hard you’re gonna pull my arm outta its socket have you ever reset a dislocated shoulder before it fucking hurts--”

“Seriously, ixnay on the earingsway, do you _want_ the disappointed look, Dave? Do you _want_ the look that’ll send you squirming in your place, unable to figure out how exactly you screwed up so bad? I don’t!”

“Idunno, it sounds like a pretty novel experience the way you describe it. But don’t worry, he’s not here now is he? I’ll be on my best behavior, I promise.”

Their voices faded, and a door closes upstairs.

You’re alone.

Again. 

This isn’t your place. 

It isn’t your space.

Your eyes drift up towards the fireplace. The mantle place. To the candy blue urn and the portrait and you just--

Can’t.

This is shit to deal with later, when Dan Egbert isn’t walking out of the back room straightening his tie, and glancing from you to the stairs and throwing an unvocalized question in your direction. 

You box up these feelings with great prejudice and lock them back up, flinging them deep into the fog. You’re _lucky_ you didn’t walk through that door to find her taxidermied corpse.

“John dragged Dave up to his room.”

John’s dad nods, as if that's what he expected. “Well, feel free to make yourself at home. The remote is on the couch, or there’s the office space if you wish for some quiet to work. I’m going to get a head start on prepping the meal. You two had a long flight, and are two hours behind what you are used to, so we’ll aim for early afternoon, with perhaps leftovers later in the evening, or some light snacks. I assume John will likely call a movie marathon at some point, and it just wouldn’t do to interrupt them when _that_ gets going.”

He turns to go. You stand there. In this room. There’s a decent sized TV against the far wall, a current gen game system tucked into a wooden entertainment station, directly across from the couch in front of some giant framed clown painting but--

“Is there anything I can help with?” 

If you were anyone other than you, the words could have been described with a verb such as to blurt, letting them slip out and stop him even as he pushes the swinging saloon-style doors to head into the kitchen. He regards you, and you wonder what he thinks of you. Of this almost thirty adult standing around in the corner of his living room, two seconds from fucking off into the yard or something because you don’t feel like you belong _anywhere._ You can’t follow Dave--that would be the _worst_ decision you could make. And you can’t stay here, in this room. Not right now. Not right under--

“I could use an extra hand, if you are willing.” He inclines his head in an invitation--an invitation that has your heart in your throat and you crossing the space in a flash as soon as the doors swing shut behind him, pushing the painted wood back open.

He directs you to the sink while he’s digging through the pantry, pulling out a giant bag of--

You can’t help the raised eyebrow. “Potatoes?”

“Of course! You did say he asked for a ‘spud’ for his birthday, didn’t you?”

It--you just can’t take it. He _remembered_ that offhanded comment you made when you were explaining Dave’s request. You _laugh_ . It’s quiet--you don’t lose yourself or anything, and it’s nothing like the loud almost booming laughs Jake would let loose on those occasions early on when you’d discovered something _new_ together in your explorations, but it does help some of the tightness bleed out of your shoulders and loosen up the knot in your chest. “What’s on the menu?”

“We’ll keep it simple tonight.” Dan starts counting out several potatoes, running them under the water and scrubbing to knock free any dirt clinging to the brown skins.

You watch with curiosity; you’ve never actually _had_ a potato before, although you remember considering them at the grocery store several times, it was mostly your lack of preparatory knowledge that led you to decide against them.

“I considered committing to the gambit and preparing a potato salad, but it’s not the most appealing dish. Especially for children who haven’t yet grown to appreciate some of the flavors. Mashed potatoes, roast vegetables, and chicken is always a safe bet. I have several to choose from--are there any in particular he doesn’t care for?”

You don’t know. But you let him go through the list, deciding on some combination of carrots (you know he likes those), broccoli, cauliflower, and bell peppers, to turn into some roast veggie medley with the logic that if either of the boys dislike one ingredient in particular, they can pick to focus on the ones they like. You don’t have the heart to point out that _you_ don’t even know what half of those taste like, although you have found cauliflower to be a good snack the one time you bought it, so you listen as he concocts a plan in his head.

It’s only once _all_ the vegetables are procured, washed, and patted dry with a paper towel that he turns to you. “Would you like to peel the potatoes? I’m sorry, I am used to doing all the preparations, and just got...going.”

“I…I’ve never done it before.” You hate this. Admitting your ignorance. He stops what he’s doing, and gives you an unreadable look. It makes you want to squirm, but you don’t, setting your jaw and taking the proffered spud and the--that’s not a knife? But there is some kind of hole in the center of the small metal instrument with a decently sharp edge, you eye it with the look you would give your katana, lightly checking the edge with the pad of your thumb. Yep. Sharp. Not enough to cut skin without pressure. 

“It’s quite simple. Here.”

A large hand curls around yours, placing the instrument with the sharp edge against the potato. And then moves, the edge digging through the skin and under and _slicing_ , the brown wrapping curling up in the palm of your hand. Thinner than paper. You echo the motion, fascinated, using your other hand to spin the oblong root, extending the cut and the strip around and around. You find yourself wondering if other types of skin would react the same way.

Likely need a sharper blade.

You can’t even find it in yourself to feel disgusted at that lingering thought. 

It doesn’t take long for you to realize that quick short slices feel more efficient, even if they aren’t as fun as the long curling ones. Dan leaves you be, choosing another countertop space in order to begin chopping up the rest of the vegetables. Your first oblong lumpy shape of porous root is liberated from it’s thin outer coating and you run the water over it again, mimicking his earlier motion of rubbing the oddly spongy surface with your thumb before setting it down on the furthest edge of the paper towel laid out on the counter.

Some of the water splashes onto your sleeves in the process, much to your annoyance. There are downsides to this whole, ‘wearing long sleeves.’ Even if it _does_ help stave off the winter chill of Washington, in addition to its primary function as sun repellent. While Houston had become more bearable with the death of Summer, it had _nothing_ on this place.

You’re rolling them up loosely--not quite to your elbow, the short-thread fabric doesn’t have _that_ much give to it--when you realize you’re being addressed again.

“That color looks good on you.”

“Thanks.” You pause, considering the maroon fabric between your fingers. “Made it myself.”

This particular one is a newer purchase, since you hadn’t found this color in the attic. It’s not exactly the same, less plush, but you hadn’t been able to find the good shit in _his_ records yet--not that you’ve had time to sift through all the receipts. While there’s still much work to do, sometimes the pre-dawn light turns your brain to mush and idle hands need to move until you manage to sink away from consciousness. More than once you’ve woken to find the needle jammed into the fabric to the point where you have to rip a couple stitches out to recover, but hey, you haven’t lost one into the depths of your futon yet.

There’s a sewing machine packed up in the crawlspace, but...well, that’s a bit noisy for late night needlework, and you like working with your hands.

“You sew?”

“Yeah. Fixing tears mostly, but making shit isn’t hard as long as you’ve got a pattern and measure correctly.”

Sinking into the repetitive motion, you find you _like_ peeling potatoes. It’s almost soothing. A pile of peelings begin to form on a paper towel in front of you, the eventual clean white flesh underneath revealed to the world as you set them aside one after another. You don’t have many, he only gave you 6, but you almost lose yourself in the task until--

“I think, it’s never too late to learn to mend.”

Mid swipe, frozen, the blade of the tool digging into the flesh of the root resting in your other palm. Dan isn’t looking at you. You would have felt it, no matter how in the zone you were. Call it combat awareness, call it paranoia, whatever it is, you’ve got it in spades. Which is pretty impressive considering you grew up in a human-free zone. 

You could ask what he means, but the words get caught in your throat. You know exactly what he means.

The only sound is the faint rhythmic _thunk, thunk, thunk,_ or the knife edge impacting against a wooden board, dismembering the vegetables as Dan pushes them into neat piles.

“Sometimes…” The word feels foreign on your tongue. He’s not looking at you. You _know_ he isn’t. You didn’t tell him about _everything._ Just the basics. But it’s fucking obvious isn’t it? He’s an Adult. A Real Parent, not an awkward teenaged fish out of water who doesn’t even know how to deal with kids his own age much less _raise_ one. 

He had to have seen it--in the airport, in the car, standing lost in the living room, torn by indecision. How jumpy you both are, how you contort yourself to give Dave _space._ How he clams up around you and can’t wait to get away from you. 

Your feel your shoulders slump and it makes you angry, dragging the peeler across the vegetable, imagining it’s a blade across your throat. This white flesh doesn’t bleed. “Sometimes, if you take too long it doesn’t stick. The hole just gets bigger. The edges frayed. Shit just falls apart.”

“That may be so,” Mr. Egbert agrees calmly, as if you really were just talking about what it sounds like: a rip in fabric. A tear where needle, thread, and diligent, deft fingers can coax things back into working, if not perfect, order. “But, for something so important, a gentle hand and patience can make it last until you can manage a patch.”

You can’t help but think of the last patch job you did. Fraying red, and green, and black. Torn apart by your own hands.

It’d been anything but gentle.

“It’ll never be the same.” 

“No,” You hear him sigh, “But, that is just a part of growing up, isn't it? I see my son changing before my eyes every day, too fast, I think. He’s just a child, she is my charge, my everything, and yet... with that change, our relationship too must shift to reflect who we become. Just because it’s different, doesn’t make it unworthy of treasuring, Mr. Strider. You must have been young, when you found yourself with a responsibility you didn’t expect. Maybe you made mistakes. Maybe you made poor choices. But, I think, the fact that you are trying despite them is admirable. Many simply give up.”

“...call me Dirk.”

You place the last potato onto the napkin. There’s a large, ugly gash in it, but…

It’s still whole.

“Dan.” You finally look at him, he's focused on his work. On the rhythmic thunk, thunk, thunk. “Once we finish here, I plan to start baking. I have the fixings for several different flavors--do you know what type of cake Dave would prefer? I realized we never discussed that on the phone.”

You think of old, pixelated footage. Of a PR stunt. Of heart shaped shades and a berry in mint green hair. Of files saved on your phone. Dicks drawn on fruit tarts that you never get to see in person, because he always eats them immediately after sending you a picture.

“Strawberry.”

“I’ll need to run out and get fresh ones.”

A beat.

You remember the feel of his hand on yours, guiding you to take that first step.

“...could you teach me how to make it?”

You finally look at him, and the small smile directed towards you is surprised, but kind.

“Of course.”

  
  
  
  


# Dave > Pick Your Poison

“I’m dying.”

Okay maybe that doesn’t get you the reaction you want, so you groan and dramatically throw your arm across your face. There’s a huff and you hide a smile where your audience can’t see it, keeping it tucked in your pocket. A tiny little treasure meant for yourself. 

It was so _nice_ having someone around who appreciated your theatrics. 

“Come closer, bro, please, let me see your bespectacled dweebish face one last time…”

It’s only half for the lols, really. _Gog_ you feel uncomfortable. But if you could jump back in time with an emptied stomach, you’d _totally_ do it all over again.

“Maybe I’ve already died and gone to heaven, that’s the only explanation. Do you really get to eat _that_ every day? I’m so stuffed I feel like I’m gonna fucking explode, bro.”

“I don’t know, you’re sounding pretty alive to me, _bro.”_  

“ _Dying_ not dead, John. No rest for the wicked till the deed is done. Put me out of my misery, I’ll never be able to eat again--”

“No one told you to stuff your stupid face.”

“Yeah well my ‘stupid face’ has never had anything so _heavenly_ in like, my whole existance on this earth and beyond. Like seriously bro, I can never look at chicken again. Never order my kungpao chicken. It’s useless. Gone. Your dad has _ruined_ me. Chicken nuggets are but a wistful nostalgic pipe dream blown away at the mere memory of the masterpiece I had in my mouth less than an hour ago.”

“Mmm hmmm.”

He’s probably rolling his eyes at you. You crack an eye open. The angle is kinda whack, but you can see his back from where you’d thrown yourself on the floor of his room during your performance. He’s rummaging through a box, making a shit ton of noise, plastic shifting and thunking together, and you put 2 and 2 together to get five and let out an exasperated sigh, rolling over onto your side despite the discomfort the movement causes. Fuck, it may not look like it when you poke it beneath your shirt, and maybe you’re playing it up a little bit for the dramaz, but you really do feel like you are gonna explode into a splattering of Dave goo thanks to how much you ate, “Dude are you seriously going through a bunch of VHS right now? Don’t you know that shit is so last decade? It’s DVDs or bust now, get with the times. Format of the future and shit.”

Oh now he’s _definitely_ rolling his eyes at you.

You’re kinda smug about that.

“It’s not like I don’t know that! They just don’t have all the good shit on --”

You can’t help it, you cut him out with a loud startled gasp, “Oh my goooooood Egbert did you mine ears deceive me??? Did you just say a naughty word???”

“--digital formats.” He just buries himself half into the box again as if you weren’t even there. On a whim, you throw a sock at him. It lands in a sad little crumple near his scrawny ass and he doesn’t even notice. Which is hella rude. He’s not being a good host, ignoring a visiting dignitary like that. “I was thinking we could watch Ghostbusters first, and then the second one--I know people give it shit, but it’s severely underrated bro--and then maybe--oh we can dive into my Nic Cage collection, dude this is gonna be so great.”

Oh no. Oh _no._ You can see your doom in the distance, a tidal wave of terrible taste and Nicholas Cage fanboyism draining the ocean around you so you can see the fish flopping on the ocean floor only the fish all had the same clown face that’s plastered all over the posters that cover the walls. It’s gonna hit. It’s gonna hit unless you do something.

“John?”

“Earth to Egbert, hello, this is houston speaking do you copy?”

He either can’t hear you or is deliberately ignoring you, continuing to prattle along about movie possibilities. Well then. This isn’t like pesterchum where he can mute your notifications, and then pretend the following deluge of messages never existed whenever he wants. You have one more sock on your foot. One more shot. You arm yourself, balling it up and eyeing the angle of his back. You can’t quite see where exactly his head is, but you can guesstimate. But it’s only one shot so you have to make it count.

You like to pretend you calculated the shit out of that trajectory, but honestly, you’ve played several hours of gunbound and you’re pretty pro at just eyeballing it. So you pick your angle, and just let it go.

“And then maybe, oh I don’t know, here’s Casper! No! Wait! Maybe we should end the world with Deep Impact or--” There’s a muffled shriek as that black haired mop of a head shoots up, the boy flailing, the VHS tapes clattering back down onto each other like someone misplaced the last domino is some intricate room-scale design as he paws at his head, flinging the offending sock (aw yeah you totally hit the bullseye) onto the floor, all proud and shit for succeeding where its pair failed. A right ol sock party of two there near egbert’s ass, “DUDE THAT’S GROSS WHAT THE HECK MAN!” 

Damn his hair is all fluffed and shit, like someone’d just gone and gave him a noogie, only it’d ruffled itself due to the fierceness of his outrage. He’s kinda freaking adorable like this. It just reinforces the conclusion you came to earlier. Needling John over pesterchum has nothing on the real thing. 

“Just needed to get your attention, bro. I got words to say on the subject of our watch list tonight.”

“You’ve done nothing _but_ words Dave! You’re never out of words!”

“Yeah well, I think I should have a say in what we watch during this whole shindig, is all. Given it’s, you know, my birthday.” You pause when you see him about to protest, “Okay tomorrow is, but like, hear me out. Why not split the difference? You pick four movies, I pick four movies, and then we alternate until someone passes out because I really don’t think you’re gonna survive 16 hours.”

“That’s actually a good idea, yeah, we can do that. But no sequels. At least not in a row.” John  eyes your socks with distaste and shoves them back in your direction which just leaves you snickering. “You’re gross dude. Put those things away, they smell. And anyway, I can’t believe you think _I’m_ going to be the one to fall asleep first. What kinda scrub do you take me for? ”

“Duh, dude, it’s inevitable.” You wag a finger in his direction with one hand, captchaloguing the socks with the other so you can spare his poor sensitive nose--and save your ammunition for later, when he least expects it, “You’re the one with a parental enforced bed-time on this side of the date-line. _I’m_ used to stayin’ up till the sun starts shinin’ and good little Egberts are long long gone into snoozeville.”

Speaking of bed times, there _has_ been something niggling at the back of your mind and this is like, the perfect time to drop that question. “What’s up with that anyway? Don’t you have school tomorrow? Didn’t you have school _today?_ Your dad is pretty serious on that whole edumacation thing isn’t he?”

“I guess.” He flops back against the chest, “It’s pretty confusing. I’m not sure if he _wants_ me to go to school, or like is looking for an excuse for me to stay home. I got the sniffles last month and he had me on lockdown for the _week._ It’s kinda dumb, but it’d be dumber to question it when I get excused absences for my best friend’s visit, you know?”

“Hell yeah!” You scoot closer and offer him an olive branch. A fist waiting for it’s prophesied bump of friendship. He just blinks at it for a moment before showing you those prominent chompers and completing the ritual. “Here’s to exploiting parently loopholes for swag and profit. Now let’s see what your terrible taste has in store for us--”

You’re actually pleasantly surprised when he lets you pick through his collection. There’s the expected nic cage trash-- _of course_ John picks Con Air. Well, you suppose it’s about time you actually watched it with how many times John’s threatened to send you a copy every time you completely miss his pro references--and more ghost related shit than you can fit into a back mounted vacuum pack, but there’s also some gems in here. Your small pile soon contains such classics as Jurrassic Park--fuck yeah _dinosaurs_ .  You love that shit.-- the first Star Wars movie because come on. You see him snickering as you dust off a DVD copy of Starsky and Hutch, raising an eyebrow at him even though he probably can’t see them behind your big honking shades, “Oh I didn’t expect you to have actually _good_ shit in here!”

“Haha, I shoulda known you’d go for Stiller! I think I’ve even got Zoolander in here somewhere, that’s another one.” 

John begins spreading the sizable collection across the floor, “HAH! Here it is. Look at that mug. Isn’t it right up your alley?”

“Shut up.” You growl, but you grab at the tape he’s waving in your face and adding it to your collection. Stupid Stiller and his weird gaunt face staring up at you from behind a pitiful barrier of thin paper. This was even a _new_ movie. Why the fuck would John buy the _VHS???_  “Whelp, that makes four for me. You get your shit together?”

“Yeah! I think I’ve got a good selection.” John starts replace all the shit on the floor into the chest. It’s mesmerizing, the care with which he packs it all away, taking you back to the slow, deliberate movements you take on when you rearrange your collection up on your shelves. Your delicate, fragile, treasures. Once finished he sits back in triumph and pushes the lid back down on the low chest, nudging it back into it’s snug place of honor on the floor of the closet, “Okay! Grab your shit and let’s go! It’s time for Phase 2.”

“Phase 2?”

“Duh! Can’t have a movie night without a blanket fort! We can tear the couch apart and get some chairs and camp out in the living room it’ll be _sweet!_ ”

It’s in that moment, that the small, intsy little detail you’d been ignoring decides to poke its head out of the muck and blow a raspberry at you, rudely popping the bubble right in your fact and getting the metaphorical spit-splatter all over your face.

“You mean like, downstairs?”

“Uh, yes?”

“The living room that is downstairs?”

“Duh? That’s where the TV is!”

“I thought we were gonna just like. Chill. Up here. You know, we could totally put your monitor on the floor and then just make a pillow fort right here, no need to commandeer the living area and bother b--anyone else. Isn’t staying up all night to get crusty like, someone you do _away_ from other guests???”

“Dad won’t care! He never even watches the TV. Besides, haven’t you _ever_ seen those awesome forts that take up the entire room??? Right in front of the big TV! I’ve always wanted to build one, and this is like the perfect chance! We can grab the computer chairs and the lamp table, and I think there might be more chairs in the shed out back, and then take the cushions off the couch and--”

You’re listening. You swear you are. But you find yourself swallowing your words and your palms growing slick. It does sound awesome. It sounds so awesome that you can almost imagine it, ghost central with John’s spirit printed sheets thrown over top. But. You just. Don’t want to inconvenience Mr. E. That’s all. Staying up all night, plonking some masterclass level of fortification in the middle of his living room feels very much like it would be an inconvenience, much less having that big TV going all night. It’s got nothin’ to do with the fact that doing so would leave you without a door in the middle of the night, and _god_ what about Bro?? 

Fuck what has he even been doing all day? Shacking up with Mr. E and getting parental pointers? Then you stop and consider that sentence before erasing vigorously because you’re pretty sure there’s an implication with that particular wording you really don’t want to think about. You don’t want to think about Bro. You aren’t _supposed_ to think about Bro. Not with John. John is your little calm in the center of the hurricane where the sun’s fucking bright and shiny and the wind keeps the clouds at a strict 2 mile distance in every direction  with a big shiny DO NOT INTERACT restraining order. The Church of John was the Church of “come on dave he’s all you ever talk about anymore! give yourself a break and come play this dumb flash game i found on newgrounds.”

“...dude, are you okay?” 

You’ve gone stiff as a board, can feel the concrete slam of your fists on a not quite literal brick wall as your relaxed demeanor is ripped to shreds. You take just a little too long to respond, you know that, because John’s expression shifts a smidge closer to uneasy, and you know this kid probably better than you should, let’s be real, and he’s a great dude but observant he is _not_. 

“Yeah, I’m cool.” You gather your selections, suddenly self conscious about airing your movie preferences. Which is dumb. Bro’s made you watch movies with him multiple times, and nearly _every_ _time_ he had you pick. It’s no big. It’s really no big. You’re cool as a cucumber on some hot chick’s facial mask. “Just not up to speed on sleepover etiquette that’s all. I’ma virgin here, Johnny boy. Pure as freshly fallen snow. Come on, let’s go and pop this sleepover cherry--”

“Ugh, stop being so...” 

He pauses, looking for the right word. 

“Creative? Loquacious?” 

What can you say? You’re a simple creature. You see an opportunity and you go for it, busting out a 21 point word just because you can.

“I was gonna say lame, but that might be too much to ask.” John rolls his eyes behind those big nerd glasses of his and lets out an exasperated puff of air that sends his bangs flying above glittering glass. “Just don’t say that stuff around my Dad okay?”

“I promise to never defile your father’s saintly ears, cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle, yadda yadda ”

He cuffs you on the shoulder. You bottle up your uneasy feelings under a pile of grade A Strider-style bullshit and flash him your best primo movie star smile and then race him down the stairs.

Which gets you yelled at, funnily enough. 

Okay maybe not yelled, but exactly 7 minutes and 57 seconds later you and John are pinned under a stern, hat-shaded look and very clearly informed that there is to be no “running or rough-housing in the house,” and “if you must, there’s an entire back yard with which to entertain yourselves in.”

You keep your attention very firmly focused on Mr. E as John works on negotiating for your extended lease of the living room as well as the procurement of various construction materials with which to build the proposed structure. You think John’s winning? Maybe? He’s trying to convince his dad to bring his computer chair down the stairs to serve as one of the walls when a prickle tapdances up your spine. If the lack of attention being shot your way is any indication, you manage to head off any visible reaction, although you use the anonymity of your shades to check the entrances to the room to find the breaching point--

Nothing. He doesn’t appear. It’s almost like a return to days and nights when you could feel him and never find him. When he might as well have lived in stealth mode. It puts you on edge because you know he’s there. 

You can feel his eyes on you.

Seeing John next to his dad. The way they fit together. How John could just stand right there and _argue_ the details of a fucking pillow fort with his _father_ when you can barely bring yourself to look at your Bro without expecting--fuck what even do you expect? 

You ground yourself, sinking into the beating of your heart, counting your breathing, counting the time, fingers twitching and you let them tap against your arm. You’re sitting on the empty couch, john’s pile of movies joining your own on the cushion next to you. Well away from all the possible entrances.

“Dirk?” Mr. E breaks from a lull in the conversation and throws the name over his shoulder. It startles you. It still feels weird, to attach something so mundane as a simple, four letter name to your Bro. Maybe you should keep using it. Maybe if you stopped thinking of him as _Bro_ this wouldn’t be so-- “What do you think about this? I’m afraid we don’t have a guest room. If these two hooligans have their way with the couch, we’ll need to set you up in the office tonight. Is that acceptable?”

You expect him to appear like a silent ghost behind John’s dad, doing one of those dramatically nonchalant, what do you mean I was here the whole time, style entrances that you envied, even as they freaked you out. Despite the expectation, you aren’t even the least surprised when it _doesn’t_ happen, and a hesitant, scruffy head poking over the double saloon style door into the kitchen, some white sort of powdery substance smeared across his forehead and even a bit on his nose. Places where a careless back of the hand would swipe to clear a bead of sweat and it makes you want to scowl. It’s…

It’s…

Embarrassing.

What has he even been up to??? It can’t have been an hour since lunch. Dinner. Linner. Whatever. And he’s already making a mess of himself. You can see a little more of the stuff on his stupid puppet skin shirt, when he completely crosses the boundaries of the room; was he playing in sugar or something?

“What do they want to do?”

Please. Like he wasn’t just lurking at the door listening. Never wanting to admit to being sneaky.

“All-Night Movie Marathon in Fort Underten.” You find yourself drawling before anyone can answer, “No one over 5 feet tall allowed.”

“An apt enough summary. Not only would such an endeavor be a noise hazard, but the construction would be taking up much of the extra bedding I had set aside for you and Dave.  But, there IS another option; I’m sure John would be willing to give up his bed to his old man, and you can have mine.”

“Ugh Dad no that’s _my_ room. You’ll just mess it up”

...yup. Your original plan of shacking up in John's room and clustering around a misplaced monitor is looking more and more inviting by the moment. You say as much, and now John turns those puppy eyes on you and you just...can’t take it damn. He’s really got his heart set on doing this whole thing ‘properly’.

Bro is silent, fading almost into the background of your attention, aside from that telltale prickle, while you get caught up in the negotiation between the two Egberts again. John just keeps barreling ahead, looking more and agitated the longer the discussion goes on with little to no headway gained. Like he’s used to just rolling and yet unexpectedly finds himself running head first into an unyielding wall.

“Do you want to do this, Dave?” You’re trapped. Bro’s words are quiet, but they are directed at you. Only at you. John and his parental overlord didn’t seem to notice at all. 

Your breath is caught in your chest. One beat. Then another. All the way to the end of the measure. You count it, pointedly, leaning on the ticking in order to still the nervous pace of your heart. You don’t. Want it. Not really. It’ll leave you out in the open without a door to close. But you think of John’s earnest face as he described his dream fort, and you kinda, find yourself wanting to give it to him. So you put that shit on pause and just give him a nod. A quick, sharp Strider tilt of the head. 

You won’t really be left exposed as long as you don’t sleep, right? You got this shit.

He pulls away, lightly tapping Mr. E on the shoulder, interrupting the argu--er negotiation, “I’m fine with staying in the office. Let the kids have it.”

From your spot on the couch, you have a front row seat to _it._ Mr. Egbert turns to your Bro with a raised eyebrow. Then sighs. The mountain shifting. Just the slightest bit. “Alright. I’ll get the chairs.”

John gives a whoop of delight--

And then _launches himself_ at your brother. 

You’re frozen. You expect him to flash-step away. For John to overshoot and roll all the way through the swinging doors to land face first on the floor. 

But none of that happens. John’s skinny dark arms wrap around Bro’s waist in a quick hug with a barrage of enthusiastic thank yous before the kid whirls away, chatting with his dad about exactly what he wanted and how and you can’t even parse what the fuck just happened because what the fuck.

Bro just stood there and took it. Surprised as shit, but you’d read those emotions clear as fucking day. Shock. A moment of battle tension. Then a deliberate lowering of his hands, giving john a clear, awkward pat on the arm before the boy let go.

Orange meets red. He turns away, and retreats back into the kitchen. 

There’s a pain, deep in your chest. 

You wish you were brave enough to chase him. 

Pushing yourself off the couch, you follow John instead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: WHUPS I accidentally cut a big part of dirk's section at the end there D: It's fixed now but damn that was a really important bit.
> 
> Aaaand there we go. Dave's section ended up surprisingly difficult. Probably because I'm woefully underedumacated when it comes to movies and pop culture in general haha. I feel pretty bad writing this; Dirk feels so out of place and uncomfortable, while Dave is having the time of his life. Ah well, let Dave have it while it lasts I suppose.
> 
> Guys. I'ma be real with you. I'm participating in Camp Nano next month. So, while I will have a lot of *writing* done, in theory, I'm not sure how prompt I can be on editing and posting since nano is all about them wurds. I'll try to keep up my posting schedule, but if I miss something, with hope it's just due to a lack of editing time haha. We'll see! Check my tumblr at katreal-fic for status updates and out of context snippets~
> 
> Next time on Game G--I mean, next time we see some late night mysteries, and then a challenger approaches :3c


	54. [I1P5] Spill the Beans

The numbers of the digital clock across the room spill out over the edge of the desk and onto the floor in a cascading waterfall of red. It clashes with the trickle of blue-white moonlight sneaking in from the window above your head, but given the positioning of the house and the angle of the moon in the sky, you highly doubt the transient light source will manage to lay claim to the room. Most of it is quite firmly in the territorial grip of night’s shadows, aside from a faint cool, flickering cast off from the still on-going movie marathon.

You continue to hear the television from the other room; voices, music, and sound effects playing at a volume too low for you to make out the words, but too loud for your hypervigilance to completely dismiss. It’s easy to trick your fog-shrouded brain that the murmuring isn’t coming from the television in the other room, but are in fact being whispered by grinning faces and never-blinking, staring eyes.

It’s ridiculous. Cal isn’t even  _ here  _ \- for better or for worse you can only see shadowed on black. 

You close your eyes purposefully-- _ again-- _ sucking in a deep, low breath-- _ again. Shit isn’t going to change-- _ and trying to visualize that place, that crossroad of broken edges and fraying threads, all tied up in this--Dave’s bro--in  _ you _ in--in your proper anchor--

Proper. Christ. It’s been  _ four months.  _ Two more and you’ll be 28 and trapped for about as long as you’d even been  _ in  _ the game. Is it even  _ yours _ ? At least any more so than this one is?? Maybe it came first but the chunk of flesh you were born in and lived in and grew with was long gone before this  _ ever _ became an issue. You don’t really want to think about that. About identity. About what’s real and what’s not and why you’re finding this shit just as valid as the other because those are worms. A big old can of wriggling slimy words squishing between your mental fingers as they scrabble and cling to rough hewn stone looking for purchase. You slid right out of your physical self into a construct. Hit the ground running when Ascending killed you for the first time. What was the difference here, going from 16-- _ 17-- _ to 28? It isn’t even the meatsuit it’s…

Fuck, that got away from you. It got so far away from you it fucked off on a redeye non-stop flight back to Houston. You press your palms into your eyes, abandoning any pretense of trying to do anything productive, be that knocking yourself out or trying to take advantage of your distance and meditate your way back into the medium. The ghost of claws--and not the alien but  _ comforting _ feeling you get when Davepeta sticks their meddling paws into your emotional stability business--digging into the core of what you are and cracking and--

The blanket pools around your feet, the full winter chill of a house in the Pacific Northwest creeping into your Tropical Texan bones as you scoot into a more seated position. Your back up against the wall like some bully had you up against the locker, only that pressure is you and your knees and you’re squishing yourself into this non-existent box so hard it might be a little difficult to breathe but that’s fine. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

Everything.

Is.

Fine.

Shit. It’s not even that there’s anything  _ wrong _ . It was a good day. You baked a fucking  _ cake.  _ Okay, so maybe Dan made three cakes to your one but that one was the result of hours worth of observation and meticulous placement of frosting and ensuring each strawberry was equidistant from each other with the most perfect swirl of whipped icing in between each and--

You purposefully knock your head back against the wall, feeling the thud reverberate through your skull, the self-inflicted ache acting as an anchor to keep you grounded and not floating. It would pass the time, getting lost up in the fog and the self recriminations locked up in your mental crawlspace - it would be  _ easier _ , not having to expend the mental energy to wrestle them back down, knowing they’ll bubble to the surface again, faster, unless you have something concrete to distract you.

But the glowing numbers seep through your eyelids, reminding you of the time you’d lost, lying on the floor in an unfamiliar room, walls covered in grinning, painted faces that have the hairs on the back of your neck prickling. 

At least it’s not as bad as at home, before you took your frustration out on everything except the one who deserved it, because fuck, you  _ can’t get rid of Cal _ .

It’s not like you expected to be able to sleep anyway. Not with the sanctuary carved into your soul unavailable, although you’d  _ hoped _ leaving Cal behind would allow you to meditate at least. Call it paranoia, call it a trauma response, call it fucking PTSD it doesn’t matter. Months of dealing with that little shit made you respond unconsciously to any attempts to reach outside the clearly marked boundaries of your own soul, because beyond the nebulous protection of those threads-- _ gone, exposed, if you sleep now you’d be a sitting duck-- _ is a raging fire waiting to consume you.

...the fact that you can’t figure out how to knock your own brain out prickles at you. A burr clinging tight to your skin, tiny hook spines burrowing deep and latching on. 

You just want an OFF button.

_ Christ. _

Pulling out your phone isn’t quite intentional, and the screen’s dimmest setting still feels like someone is shining a flashlight dead in your face, but even when squinting you trace the well worn path towards your Pesterchum app.

You have the password for the home wi-fi network, but it’s a brief distraction to hack the light encryption instead, using nothing but your trashtier phone, dreaming about the fact that you wouldn’t have needed it if you had your goddamn shades. Those things were outfitted with Skaiatech all-in-one energy and data emitters, abusing The Medium’s mysterious conductive properties to make sure you never ran outta energy or needed signal--because The Medium  _ was _ nothing but data. 

It’s probably sad that you miss your tech more than you miss your own fucking body at this point. 

You crack the network wide open with what may be more misplaced frustration than is strictly necessary, but you know this is the right thing to do when your Pesterchum app lights up, ringing with notifications. An easy flick and you have the device muted, eyes flickering up to the nonexistent door in the archway separating you from the living room. The distant movie sounds continue undisturbed. 

There’s no way the tinny speakers on your phone would have made it that far anyway.

Davepeta’s messages scroll across the screen, and you skim through them. Nothing overtly concerning, even if you fail to suppress the urge to sigh at their verbal-- _ written _ antics turning what should have been at most twenty messages into several dozen. 

They’re available now - a small green pip next to their name flickers at the top of the screen. You click out of the past conversation and open an active one and type out the words locked behind your lips.

timaeusTestified [TT]TT  began pestering  dataJammer [DJ]

timaeusTestified [TT]: Happy Birthday.

One of many birthdays, on this day of December the 3rd, at 2:23 in the morning. The ambiguity found in who exactly you mean when you say those words have long since been a comfort. If you took your Bro’s birthday--Dave’s birthday--you could murmur a “happy birthday bro” and pretend you weren’t just wishing it to yourself.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< aaaaw thank mew bro you shouldnt have snuck away just to wish that to lil ol me i can be patient B33   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but since youre here   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< *dj rubs against your ankles like a cat because cats do that shit it isn’t weird* sup   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< is it pawrty the night away time   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< beclaws the timestamps dont lie and it looks way past any respawnsible bedtime especially for growing kittens and ol grandpaws   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< oh wait its john   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< mewvie marathon?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Movie marathon.    
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< did he make shorty watch con air???   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i bet he did   
timaeusTestified [TT]: They both had a pile of movies once they came downstairs to negotiate for primo packs of real estate from Mr. Egbert so they were in it for the long haul. I didn’t stick around to watch.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dude you have insomnia   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< why would you turn down fr33 all night entertainment???   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Dave wouldn’t want me intruding.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but did you ask???   
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s pretty obvious.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< okay you didnt   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< cool   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< youre never gonna get anywhere if you ban yourself the way you banned hats you know   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< he doesnt hate you   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< things are just   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< weird   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I know.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m just giving him space; it’s his birthday, he deserves to be able to spend it without his Bro hovering over shit. You didn’t see him at the airport. It was pretty bad.    
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its his birthday he deserves to be given the choice dude   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont assume you know best beclaws trust me   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thats pawrt of the purroblem   
timaeusTestified [TT]: …   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< that was your fr33 daily dose of dave dadvice   
timaeusTestified [TT]: …   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< aw come on that was a good one   
timaeusTestified [TT]: No.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< *dj purrs* just admit it   
timaeusTestified [TT]: It isn’t even a cat pun.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont discriminate when it comes to categories of wordplay bro   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< anyway   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< as much as id love all the d33ts on shorty’s big play date with john   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< furrst were overdue for somefang   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< like four furrreaking months overdue   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i got some sl33p   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< we n33d to talk about   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you know    
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< cal???   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you said he hurt you   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< did it ever happen again???

At the mention of the puppet, you feel a shiver crawling down your back like little, stuffed hands. The wall length mural of jesters stares down at you, even as you know the bulk of the piano blocks some of them from your immediate view. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: I need to get out of here.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< are you okay???   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Yeah, the decor is getting to me. I need some air.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< oh man yeah youre at johns   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i never guessed youd have an issue with the clowns   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< all those harlequins arent much diffurent from just weirdly dressed puppets   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Yes, well, I’m not particularly fond of puppets at the moment either. The betrayal of the one person who has always been there for me since my earliest formative memories is a tough pill to swallow.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Even if that person appears to be less stuffed benevolent guardian figure and more possessed hell spawn in this variation of the universe.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< right   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< well he was always hellspawn as fur as i was concerned   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< if you go upstairs and the right youll make it to the balclawny   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< no clowns out there and i know your pawpensity for heights   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< knowing bro you can purrobably reach the roof if a measly balclawny isnt enough fur ya   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< nice

It isn’t the steel strutted tower with tight spaces you probably shouldn’t be able to wedge yourself into. 

You’ll take it.

You’re on your feet before you really consider not doing so, before you consider the repercussions of sneaking onto someone else’s roof. You gather up your shit, including the small nest of thick blankets Dan had set aside for you, and shove it all into a single card. It’s Washington. In the middle of winter. You did your research. You aren’t stupid, even if you only have the faintest idea of what near-freezing temperatures are supposed to feel like.

You pause in the archway, taking in the backside of the giant fort, plonked in the middle of the room. You remember watching some of the construction from the kitchen, the computer chairs pillaged from John’s room and the office; helping Dan carry in a folding table and a set of chairs from the shed, shivering in the cold air that effortlessly pierces your layers of shirts because you’re a born and bred Texan even if Texas didn’t exist when you got there, and you weren’t prepared for this shit.

You can’t see the boys. Not from there. You  _ can _ however see the TV, almost silent images playing through a movie you aren’t sure you recognized--probably one of John’s choices, since anything Dave would have chosen ended up in your media library for study. You hear quiet breathing, but you can’t tell how many, muffled as it is by the blankets.

You  _ hope _ they are asleep. Dave could always use more.

The last thing you want is for Dave to jerk awake with your ugly mug hovering over him, so you don’t check, even if you want to. You stick to the back of the room and step lightly across the carpeted floor, sock covering preventing your toes from digging in to the too long weave. It’s different; even through fabric, so different from what you grew up with and lived with. But not unfamiliar. You’ve stood here before, surrounded by dashing gentlemen and trenchcoats, with a temptingly sweet aroma drifting in from the open kitchen…

You should have spent more time here. You  _ should _ have. You could count the number of times on one hand even if you chopped off half your fingers.

...You really  _ were  _ a terrible friend, weren’t you? Six months,  _ three  _ friends all within quick portal hops of each other, and all you cared about was  _ Jake English. _

You can’t stop yourself; eyes drift upwards, as if something hooks its claws into your brain and refuses to let it go. In the cast off light from the television, odd shadows form, but you recognize that picture from months ago. The obituary is lower quality, scanned from a photo of a painting on even more ancient tech, grainy but still recognizable. This…

You look silently upon a face you  _ recognize _ , deep in your bones, even if you’d never really gotten a chance to see more or her than a few brief pain filled moments during a lull in battle, where Dave and the blind troll--Terezi, you think--tossed out several fraymotifs in order to give you a few moments to rest…

A soft blue glow, chasing away the pain and exhaustion and  _ laughing  _ that hooting laugh like she’d just pulled the best joke in the world by absconding with your injuries.

Glimpses of a wrinkled, kind face, glowing blue below a jester’s hat.

She’s old. She’s dead. That urn right there is  _ her.  _

A pile of dust and bone and an old painted portrait.

You can see your Jane in the impish grin, in the stylish round glasses and the dimples in her smile. You can see past the grey hair and the faded skin, to the blue eyes sparkling with joy and a healthy glowing face.

You’re thankful for the fog, now. For the numbness that spreads through you as you turn away, rubbing at something irritating your eyes. 

The back of your hand comes away damp. 

At least there isn’t anyone here to see you, finally letting your heart process what you’ve been ignoring all day. Hiding in the kitchen. Hiding in the office once Dan had gone to bed. You’d done your small part in building Fort Underten by delivering building materials, before absconding to the kitchen while Dan supervised the rest of the operation.  _ That  _ kept staring at you and there was only so much you could deliberately  _ not  _ acknowledge. Not with the way you are, and your propensity for constant observation.

Eight players, you remind yourself, taking the step from carpet to stairs, drawing on experience borne from sneaking through crumbling tombs and putting your weight on the sturdier edges and corners of the structure to prevent creaking. You look out over the room from your perch, at her, washed out in the cool light from a near silent, abandoned television.

You imagine you could hear a familiar laugh, just oh so slightly sideways and raspy with age, about to drop ghostly blue cookie on your head.

But it’s nothing, as the scene changes, the blue fading and being replaced with another color. And another.

The Egbertian household isn’t a large one; even if it’s probably a magnitude more spacious than the one bed-room apartment you shared with Dave. It isn’t hard to find the path Davepeta had indicated. The door is locked from the inside-- _ why bother? It’s on the second floor and it’s not like they had to worry about drones here-- _ but honestly it isn’t much of a barrier; just a twist of a latch and you find yourself stepping out into  _ COLD _ night air. An open space, surrounded by a gleaming metal railing, nothing for decoration save for a small white telescope, placed carefully onto a tripod.

This side of the house, the opposite to your weak, little West facing office window earlier, bears the full brunt of the soft incandescent moonlight, spilling down around you and painting the wood-covered surface with its glow. Not quite full, a waxing gibbous moon hangs in the sky, but close enough to light up the night, creeping in through streets and cracks in the darkened neighborhood, leaving you shivering and exposed in your woefully underprepared clothing. Cones of soft yellow break up the peaceful image at various intervals along the empty streets.

A landscape holding its breath. You’ve never really considered the implications of a silent winter night before. Even at home, there’d always been the sound of waves.

Davepeta was right, you could reach the roof from here if you balanced on the balcony railing--ignoring your shaking, red hands--and pull yourself up. It’s a steeper grade than you like--flat roofs are so much better--but you find the perfect spot overlooking the balcony, the bare-leafed tree and the tire swing. Careful angling allows you to esconse yourself against the flat wall, rough shingles pressing against your palms and seeping through your sock covered feet. The near freezing--you guess anyway, because of the way you’ve been involuntarily shivering despite your thicker, layered clothes--temperate seeps into your skin, but that’s quickly remedied to an extent by a respectable nest of blankets tumbling out of your personalized pocket dimension and into your sphere of influence to organize at your leisure. 

It isn’t perfect, but you manage to arrange them into a satisfactory cocoon, layers upon layers wrapped around your shoulders and over your lap to trap your body heat and stave off the air. Thankfully it’s a dead night, with no wind to shape spikes of molecule into literal icicles to try and skewer you with. Your breath puffs out in a thin mist, the moisture condensing and drifting away into the deep, black, star studded night.

The night is...something you hadn’t realized you’d missed, living as you had in the last four or five months in the center of a city that never sleeps. You could stand out on the roof of your apartment building at any time of night and see a sea of lights around you. Thousands and maybe even millions of tiny lights, throwing their illumination into the sky and making all but the brightest of stars fade.

You still can’t see the Milky Way, that magical river of stars across the sky, but… between the sporadic street lights and dark houses it’s definitely a better view.

What the fuck are you doing?

You don’t know, but you do it, whatever it is. Clumsy and chilled fingers catch the phone as you pull it again from the sylladex, still open on a conversation full of green text.

Nothing new, which was strange. You would have expected Davepeta to keep typing while you moved. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: It is a nice view.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Speaking from experience?   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< yeah   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< used to hang out at johns place you know??   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< jade was supposed to be the one to build up my place   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but she never made it into the game   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but i found your hoverboard   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...bros hoverboard   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and would go on a joyride through the gates just to see what was on the other side   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< reconnaissance and all that shit   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the plan was always to learn as much as we could and then flip the switch   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< go back in time and save johns ass   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< give all my loot and shit to the new alpha dave and then sit back and take a vacation   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or die   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< wasnt sure if self prototyping would juke the whole doomed thing   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< anyway   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< figuring out where the fuck the gates went was a big part of that   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< johns planet was   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< painful   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but painful in a good way you know?? the imps fucked off once he got himself killed so it was peaceful   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< nothing but a big black void and roiling grey clouds and blissful silence   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Sounds pretty boring if I’m honest. What you’re describing doesn’t sound very high on the list of even The Medium’s Top Ten Mediocre Tourist Attractions.    
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< number one will shock you!!   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< haha nah if you wanted a tourist trap you should have s33n roses world and cotton candy rain and pastel colors everywhere it rotted your t33th to just look at it   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< well until she blew it up   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< nah johns place was all you gotta plunge into it to find the real treasure   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< youll s33 it eventually so i purrobably shouldnt ruin the supurrise   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it was nice   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< of course calsprite ruined the mood   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but if i skipped back a couple hours i could reliably ditch his deranged feathered ass    
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< couldnt always sl33p when i n33ded a break   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and sometimes i just didnt want to s33 rose   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< especially after   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ugh thats awkward nevermind   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< are we just going to talk about me all night is that your plan   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< how is it for you???   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Cold.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< well it is winter what did you expect???   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Not quite this cold.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< this just in local texan t33n thinks winter is cold full story at 11   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you could go back inside you know   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I know.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but you wont   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Nope.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< are the short responses because your fingers are frozen   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Maybe.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i will be crosser than an anti vampire wholesaler on hallow33n if you get yourself sick with this nonsense   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you know that right???   
timaeusTestified [TT]: You aren’t my mom.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< no but im your meowirail and this is self destructive shit isnt allowed as purr the rules im not at all sorry to say   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i never should have told you there was a balclawny now im gonna have to call the fire department to tempt you out of the tr33   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< why did i even tell you that???   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Because me freezing my ass off is preferable to seriously damaging Egbert’s decor and you know it.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m fine.    
timaeusTestified [TT]: I promise.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...fine but the mewnite you even so much as start to go numb you better scamper back through the catflap mister!!!

You don’t tell them that you’re already past that point, but you hunker down in the depths of your stolen blankets, and let the heat from your breath mist along the inside of your small cocoon. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: I’m out here for a reason, you know.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...yeah   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you up for talking about it???

Freezing, dry air burns in your nose. In for four. Hold. Out for seven, rising into the still black, star studded sky.

If your fingers are shaking, you blame it on the cold. 

Eyes on the wall.

_ Not out here _ .

timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s been four months. I’m not sure what else there is to talk about. It hasn’t happened again.

...it’s true enough. You haven’t had an encounter like that again. You’re safe, hidden in the crevices of your soul, behind a barrier of red strings and an outer perimeter of broken glass.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dirk   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< please   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its been sitting on the shelf   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< theres a feelings jam calling

Damn it, they’re pulling the sincerity card aren’t they? Dropping the quirk and everything.

Seconds drag into minutes as you wait for a continuation, but it never comes, and that feels more pointed and guilt inducing than another ramble would have been.

You hate the sincerity card. It wasn’t fun when Newt pulled it back in the coffee shop. Or Jane pulled it on you back in the crypt. Or Roxy--

...you just hate it. It turns into a twisting snake, hissing and biting and demanding you keep an eye on it and not on whatever else you have going on because otherwise it’s going to bite you in the ass.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Go ahead and do your thing.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s the only way I’ll be able to talk about it.

Their response comes as a small trickle. A nonexistent wind dancing through your hair, ghostly points prickling and kneading the top of your scalp so lightly they might as well not be touching, but you can feel it anyway. You want to close your eyes. You want to lean into the trickle of endorphins coaxed out of your overtaxed grey sponge and flood your neurons with a wash of emotionally warm and fuzzy goo.

But you promised. You dig up the energy and shake the words out of stiff fingers. You almost don’t even feel the cold anymore.

timaeusTestified [TT]: I really don’t know where to start.

You feel… lost. Unmoored. You have notes written on your computer back home, in regards to this potential future conversation. The visual hallucinations. Your theories. You grope blindly in the fog, thumbing through the mental indices. You’ve got to start somewhere, even if these thoughts feel alien. A little too logical for the scatterbrain you apparently become the moment you lose your purchase on the world.

Maybe Dave was right; maybe you did--  _ break _ something. In there. It would be in character; you break everything else.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Fuck.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Okay, we’ll just need to fucking do this. Make it happen.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Did I tell you about the cracks?   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< no   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I didn’t think so. I’m going to start with a bit of history.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: My Bro and Roxy’s mom… I know most of this from Rose’s notes, but they ended up manifesting some aspects of their powers during their lifetimes.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Rose was their tactician, calling the shots during the guerilla war against the fish bitch, having uncannily accurate knowledge of exactly what needed to be done to ensure the most favorable outcome. Obvious Seer shit.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Bro...well you can probably guess; he was the ninja. In and out, sabotaging operations, assassinations, the works. I would now hypothesize the use of stable time-loops to dodge guard patrols and move about undetected between shifts, but that’s digressing since he didn’t really leave me any information on his own actions. Given what I learned from Dave before shit fell apart--he likely didn’t enjoy using his powers and apparently thought a thorough pop culture education was more important than some hand written notes.

You aren’t bitter about it.

Okay, maybe you are. A little. It

didn’t mean anything. 

It wasn’t important. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: We didn’t know it at the time, since the Scratch shit didn’t come up until we right before we got into the game, but I talked with AR. And we began to wonder if their manifestation of abilities were due to their predecessors--you and Dave--having achieved the level of mastery over their aspects. The Scratch was a paradox event, remaking the universe in place of the previous instance, but that shit is still linear to an extent. Your session influenced ours. I don’t know about the original set of guardians--your bro, and Rose’s mom-- but following this logic, the evolution of our meta selves would have followed us to this instance, allowing me access to some variation of my aspect, even if not the entire.    
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thta thev isual halluciantions???   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Yeah. Cracks.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I… think I broke shit. You know, the curse of the Prince. I don’t know what. Myself? Not enough to create a fully cognizant splinter, I think, but enough to pry open this dark space inside my soul and act as a buffer of sorts.    
timaeusTestified [TT]: All that trouble I was having getting to sleep? Three guesses what it was, and none of them count because you already know the answer.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: That night… I don’t know. Things had been going okay. I just… didn’t take the medicine. I didn’t let myself sink back into that buffer. I reached up and out, confident that this time I’d regained the energy to manage the crossing and…

Summarizing history and your theories was easier than this part. 

timaeusTestified [TT]: Did you ever get a chance to check my soul?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: If you are waiting for permission just do it.

There isn’t a response, but you’re fraught with anticipation, hunched up under a layer of blankets as that supplemental psychosomatic warmth withdrew, Davepeta ceasing the behavior causing that warm floating feeling. The pins and needles running through your limbs might be the cold, but the shiver that runs through the very core of your being definitely  _ isn’t _ . That faint plucking, like you were a fucking guitar getting played. Unconsciously a hand goes to your chest, fingers splayed digging into the thick fabric blankets right above that vibrating core, feeling your heart racing in your ears. You focus on that core, that echo of feeling.

When you pull away, and wavering light comes with it. 

Broken edges glimmer in the moonlight. Your heart beats in your hands. It wavers, a spiked, broken mass pulsing orange and maroon and pink, tendrils vanishing through the blankets burying your shoulders, reaching into your chest and anchoring in the physical and electrical connections and vessels that run through this body. 

Orange and maroon and pink. The mass of sharp edges are cracked. Broken.  _ Splintered. _ Yet holding fast despite it all. Despite the knowledge that something is  _ missing. _ Those seams shouldn’t be shadowed. Lifeless grey. You track the largest vein with your eyes. It…

Just can’t shake the thought.

It shouldn’t be grey.

You focus on the cracks, pulling at that thought. You still remember what gathering power feels like, and you drag that shit through the connections you still have to have and push it into your hands. The grey sparks a pure brilliant red as you  _ reconnect _, faint threads shimmering out, like the ones reaching into your body, but stretching out and away and knifing through the fog and the  distance and what the fuck do you think you are _doing you idiot--_

The projection wavers, and collapses in your hands. The world spins, and you--

You come to, frozen shingles digging through the fabric into your back, blankets dislodged from your shoulders, sliding down to pool in an uncomfortable lump under your side. At least you fell backwards, instead of down. 

It’s not  _ that _ long of a drop, but you’re glad you don’t have to scrape yourself off the wood if you don’t need to. The sound would probably wake someone else. Somehow, you didn’t manage to drop your phone throughout your accidental magical act.

timaeusTestified [TT]: Well, chalk that up to proof that this shit is confirmed tied to my powers. I’m not going crazy. And magic might be different but it’s definitely present. It might just be sensory still, I’m not sure how much of that was just me seeing shit or if I actually did it.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: It being, I managed to pull out my own soul. I could follow the connections, buried in all the nerves and capillaries and arteries from my brain to the tip of my useless pinky toe.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: It’s one thing with my Godtier body. I’m used to thinking of it and reality as malleable. It’s a whole ‘nother fuckin’ level when I yank it out of my own flesh suit.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: The question this raises is, is this shit just me? Does it have something to do with my presence as a fully Godtiered player in the medium? Or would the others all get bleedover from their meta-selves as we postulated earlier? Their Dreamselves did retain aspects of their Godtier-selves, but would there be any notable effects without them being cognizant of it?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Davepeta?   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< sorry bro   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< congrats youre a wizard harry and all that   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you almost zapped me with that stunt   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the red shit were the cracks you were talking about right???   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< it sounds familiar…   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I think it’s proximity based. This was the first time I’ve experienced the phenomenon since leaving Houston.   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and youve been living with this for four months?   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< shit   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont know if you are lucky or insane   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the only reason its not falling apart into a million tiny dirk bits is the fact that you somehow managed to kintsugi the shit outta this break with the red stuff   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i cant tell how d33p the crack goes but i wouldnt want to risk repeated stress   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you cant let him do this again bro   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I won’t.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I haven’t buried my head in the sand in order to rely on luck - he can’t touch me.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: He wants this shit; even shoved into the crawlspace I could always sense him slavering and scraping the boundaries looking for some chink for him to dig into.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Even with the added stress of the flight, and this unknown phenomenon that’s going on with Dave; the one good thing about this trip is the fact that I don’t have to deal with that asshole hovering just on the edge of my range; projecting my inadequacies at me.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I don’t know what changed. The hospital, I’d guess. It either got his attention, or created an opening, or something.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: You want to know what’s the worst thing about pushing aside the projection of familiarity and seeing the ugly core?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Of course you do. You started back up with that preening shit as soon as I started going off. But fine, whatever, you want some genuine heart to heart bullshit?  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Lil’ Cal was my bro. He was the only fucking thing I had. The only thing I could rely on for literal years. I learned to talk practicing on him. I liked to imagine if he could he would return the sentiment, even if it was just in the form of a quietly appreciated bro fist.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Knowing that some version of him out there _has_ the capacity to do so, and at the same time wants to try and rip me to shreds because I’m not the ‘right one’?   
timaeusTestified [TT]: Fuck that.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Fuck him.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I’ll tear myself apart over that; that I don’t belong. That everything I’m trying is screwing shit up for Dave. Spending the day with Egbert has done nothing but reassure me that I’m failing at this whole parenting thing.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: But he has no right to say I shouldn’t be here.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Or to try and pick me into pieces and rearrange them into something he desires.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I may splinter, but I won’t fucking break.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< damn bro thats top form edgy young adult shit right there  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< stamp those words on a black t33 and set it fr33 in hot topic and itd take over every highschool in the state  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the only one allowed to pull you apart is yourself!!!  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< all self reflection and shit  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< gaze into the mirror just dont punch so much that it breaks and you end up with glass embedded in your paw and depression and that shit aint fun  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i guess what i mean to say is dont let it spiral into scratching yourself so hard you draw blood  
timaeusTestified [TT]: All I ever do is spiral. But I’ll deal; I always do.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: When I fall apart I always pick the pieces back up and keep moving because there's always shit to fix, and I’m the person who needs to do it.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ummm thats not exactly healthy but ok  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< its a start  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< just like talking was a start  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< even if i n33ded to emotionally manipulate you into doing it  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Nah, it’s fine. I told you to do it.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: You were right; it was about time we talked about it.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I just wish I could set him on fire; but if he’s sticking to Dave like a burr that could have consequences.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: And despite how shitty this Cal is being… He’s still Cal.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i know what you mean  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i hated calsprite with every feathery davebased bit of my patchwork soul  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< but trust me i understand  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dave doesn’t deserve that shit though  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< maybe while you guys are in washington ill mosey on back over to derse  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< or maybe ill wait till you get back home to avoid provoking something that could ruin the kids pawrty  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< purretty sure having that shard lodged in his chest negates any protection via distance and the moment cal has a tantrum dave and by ultimate-birdshit-proxy me will get the full brunt of it  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< if i do im gonna drag your ass with me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< last thing we n33d is a repeat of yesterday  
timaeusTestified [TT]: If you stick to the Veil you should be fine, but if it makes you want to lug me around like several sacks of useless potatoes then be my guest.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Would you be up to facing him again?  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< ...purrobably not but at least i know its just a furreaking phantom in there  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< if i dont play his games he cant do anything to me  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< just laugh  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< and yeah sure id rather throw myself back into the lava fields of my purrsonalized hellscape but   
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i told how that shit went down right??  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i dont know if he was dredging up my internalized trauma or dragging it out of the shredded bits of shattered dave that are screwing with mini dave  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< frog youd think we were the heart players with the amount of daves running around  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i _am_ a heart player  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< anyway tangent averted  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hes weapawnizing shit that shorty should never have to deal with  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< like you said you arent bro  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< hes pissed off about that  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< claws out back arched tail all lashing and puffed out and fangs bared hissing and yowling his anger out at the world  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< well guess what purretty sure calsprite hated me for that exact reason  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i was never good enough never fast enough a cheap copy and a piss poor replacement and he was stuck with me and not bro and purrobably went and got himself killed in some stupid lava filled wasteland  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< thats exactly what that little shit shoved at dave  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< the idea that all this shit was our fault that wed failed and he n33ded to reach out and fix things because we were incapawble of doing it ourselves only fixing things meant breaking and then gnawing on our bones because we were all being bad little toys  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you said shortys still b33n getting the nightmares???  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i got snippets but it was ghostly f33lings thanks to time fuckery i assume we drifted out of line before i could get purroperly sucked in again  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Yeah.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: We don’t talk about it; I can count on him getting a midnight juice at least three nights out of the week.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I started keeping an extra case in the crawlspace because he was going through them so fast. I don’t think he’s noticed.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i wish to furreaking troll jesus id never flown off that night  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< if i coulda helped during those months  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i would have  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I know.

After that… there isn’t much more for you to say. Even Davepeta seems to feel the same, your phone’s notifications petering off into an uneasy truce. The cautious threading through your hair continues. You don’t ask them to stop. You feel drained, but in a good way. While thinking about Cal and the whole situation earlier has succeeded in winding your nerves up further, getting it  _ out _ there, even if it was just orange words sent to the only other person in the universe who knew who you  _ were _ …

It’s like you’ve cracked the valve by the smallest increment, and all that pressure is slowly hissing its way free.

You close your eyes and lay back against the cold shingles, pulling the blankets tight around your shoulders. The cracks are once again lifeless and grey, shadows on black, but you look past them, drawing up your memories of the meteor labs, fishing out it through the laggy clinging fog.

It’s only a recreation, but with the feedback leaking through your gameself, you like to think you can imagine it, those claws carefully picking through your hair, the smell of feathers tickling your nose, and a warm, solid presence at your side. 

You almost lose yourself to it; never quite taking that step outside yourself, but nudging the door open, bit by bit, phone a warm electronic hum against your palm, the phantom weight of your shades on your face…

A few moments of _peace_. You find yourself imagining you can feel an answering rumble under your cheek; a contented purr, and you hope Davepeta finds some solace in this--what did they call it? A feelings jam? Maybe they can’t purr through their fucked up throat, and you aren’t there, not really, trapped in your splinterself’s skin, but you’ll appreciate the tenuous link that you have right now.

But like all dreams it’s gotta end, and you find yourself snapped back into cold hard reality, with the freezing night air nipping at your face as a faint breeze begins to stir. You mentally swat at the fuzzy feeling, drawing on all the broken pieces of your attention and experience in compartmentalizing, and pushing it to the edge of your periphery, because you know you hear  _ something _ , and you aren’t safely ensconced in the meteor’s lab, or even in your own apartment where you’re dozens of feet above the ground and there’s only one entrance. Your stiff muscles are ignored similarly, like nothing more than physical noise as you sharpen your attention, looking for those tiny pinpricks of sensory input that clued you in initially.

There’s nothing on the lawn. No out of place shadows under a cloudless sky that’s a shade lighter than it was earlier, but still nothing close to the nautical twilight that would be the herald of the encroaching sunrise. The newly born wind is dancing amongst the bare branched tree, sending the tire-swing swaying with a creek or wood and role, sliding, laughing, like a ghost through the weave of the blanket you have draped over your shoulders like a cape and tickling goosebumps into existence on any patch of exposed skin it can reach and even some that it shouldn’t. 

You take a moment to utilize some tiny, detached shred of your brain to imagine what you look like right now. Like some sort of bulky, fleshy gargoyle lurking on a stranger’s roof, fabric wings folded at your sides, waiting for your target to make itself known. But that’s quickly smothered as the rest of it becomes a hot-bed of plans, flitting through possibilities and spinning out potential paths of action. 

It’s--hard. It shouldn’t be this hard; after a microsecond of fits and starts you find your general anxiety bleeding away to be replaced by that sharpened state of  _ focus,  _ juggling plans like you used to juggle irons and if you’re out of practice and several seconds slow, well, you’ll improvise.

The time on your phone reads 4:27 am; you have trouble believing all of that has taken less than an hour, but you captchalogue that shit, along with the blankets--it exposes you to the atmosphere, but it also frees up your movements--and you pull yourself into the moon-cast shadow of the chimney. Catty cornered where the two sections of the roof meet, you’ve got a good vantage from which to observe the entire front half of the yard, the balcony and--

The movement is the door opening. A small shadow shifting in the dark depths of the hallways. Small. Not Dan. It could be Dave, but something about that feels wrong - Dave has no qualms about wandering to the roof to find you at home, but would he do that at a stranger’s house? Would he even  _ know  _ which door leads to a patio? You only know because of Davepeta, and if he’s followed you out then that means he should have been out here an hour ago, at least

The cascade of moonlight highlights black hair, not white-blonde, tugged by wind and bed-head into some strange visualization of the seaweed snarls you’d occasionally fish up in your nets.

John.

You observe as he crosses the space, wondering if you’ll see Dave pop up behind him, but the open door produces no other intruders onto the moment. A simple something like a mid-winter, midnight walk. 

It would definitely be calling the kettle black if you got all up in arms about needing to just  _ get out _ for a few minutes, hours, whatever.

The shivering of your body is not the release of tension, it’s the soft wind ripping through your borrowed clothes and exposed skin as if it were nothing. You long to pull the blankets back out, but you don’t.

The kid’s in nothing but light green pajamas. Christ he didn’t even have the foresight to grab a  _ blanket, _ unless it’s buried in his sylladex. But nothing materializes with a swipe or a word or… well… anything.

It’s only you and the moon who witness the small dark haired boy resting his chin on his arms, face upturned away and angled towards the sky, the pre-dawn breeze tugging at his clothes, playing with his hair. There’s something missing; no gleam of moonlight on glass or metal peeking through the shivering strands.

No glasses. No socks. No blanket.

If you didn’t know any better, you would guess he’s--

“John?”

It’s getting to be a right old party up in here, as Dan steps out of the doorway. It’s the first time you see him without his hat. Here he is, sans hat, sans tie, sans well put together button down shirt and slacks. Just another person with short, sleep-mussed hair and sweatpants with worry creases deepend by the play of bright moonlight and shadow across dark skin.

He is capable of seeing you out of the corner of his eye, half in the shadow cast by the chimney and the western grade of the roof, a courching, menacing gargoyle half outlined by the waxing gibbous. 

He should, but, evidently, very few people think to look up.

Dan Egbert only has eyes for his son.

You watch, stiff and freezing and feeling like an outsider as slippered feet echo smaller bare ones. An arm reaches out, curling around the still boy’s shoulder. John doesn’t move. Doesn’t react. The branches continue to shift in the breeze, a soft gentle _ hssssrk  _ noise breaking up the night.

The silhouettes press together as you take a single, silent  _ step _ down, landing--if a little clumsily due to your positively frozen state--into the blindspot behind them. You can hear Dan talking. Softly. Gently. An intruder to a Moment, with a capital letter and everything, that you feel you should  _ not _ be witnessing..

You’re trying not to listen, even as you shake the chill out of your leaden limbs and muster up another flash step that takes you through the door and into the hall.

You hesitate at the top of the stairs, looking, once again, down over the pillow fort. Empty now, population reduced by one. You think about the Egberts, pressed shoulder to shoulder as Dan lowered himself to his son’s height.

The TV remains on, the menu theme playing as the DVD hits the end of its runtime and shifts back to its idle state, sending soft blue light out to paint the portait’s smiling face.

You take the next few steps one by one, working the feeling back into your muscles with each movement. You don’t sneak behind the couch this time. You don’t bypass it. You walk right in front of it--

A pale face, painted blue. Red eyes blinking blearily up at you from a nest of pillows and blankets.

You sink into a crouch, pulling in on yourself as well as putting you closer to his level. You aren’t entirely sure what you are doing. A smaller target. A smaller threat.

“Are you okay?”

“Is he okay?” He ignores your question, but that doesn’t surprise you, reading the words through mumbling lips. He doesn’t react, positively or negatively, when you unfold yourself into a cross-legged position on the floor to the side of the open space, mere feet away from where he’s huddled under a patterned blanket that’s too muddled in shade to make out in the current state of visibility.

“I think so.” He’s listening; you can see that gleam in sleep clouded eyes. He’s watching you, and not shrinking away, “His dad’s with him now.”

He sighs.  _ Relieved? _ Something in his body language has you hesitantly scooting forward, right to the edge of the cushions placed on the carpeted floor to make a makeshift mattress. Davepeta’s green words playing through your head. 

_ He deserves to make that choice. _

That small form shifts amongst the blanket nest… drawing forward, not away, putting his back to yours. Barely touching, curling into a small ball in the corner. A head of white-blond hair resting next to your knee. 

“What happened?”

This is.

Good? 

Or maybe not good. If he’s worried enough to make tonight on the same level as a 1-in-10 nightmare night in terms of willingness to put up with your physical presence--

_ His choice, remember? _

It’s like that time on the roof all over again, under a fiery red sky, under a poison green sky, you can’t look directly at him. You never can.

“I’unno.” Dave pauses his mumbling to breathe for a moment, “Got an elbow to the side as he used it to pry himself outta a totally not clingy bro hug. An’ I know it wasn’t clingy because there was no jammy on jammy action just blankets all tangled up s’all and ‘pparently I rolled over on his blanket and I dunno--managed to scrape together enough words to ask where he was going, didn’t say nuthin’. Just left.”

You don’t know what to say, so you don’t. He shifts, closer, a hand curling into the loose fabric of your borrowed sweatpants, “Did I do something, Bro? To make him leave?”

“No.” Dan in the moonlight, casually reaching out and pulling his son close. You just look down at your hand. There’s something dark caught under the worn nails. Dirt from the shingles, maybe.

You need to say something. Something more.

“No.” Reinforcing the response, “No. It… Sometimes… you just need to go for a walk. Maybe he had a dream. People don’t like talking about their dreams often.”

He should know that. You know more about what happened in Dave’s dreams from  _ Davepeta _ than you’d ever gotten out of Dave.

“S’that where you went?”

You drag your eyes away from the fixed point you were focusing on, shooting him a small glance. He rolls onto his back, half-lidded red eyes trapping you before you can possibly think of pulling away. You don’t let it show, and ask, “Did I wake you up?”

“...nah. I don’t sleep.”

“You should.”

“Y’re not.”

“No.” 

“Did you?”

Not at all.

“It’s… a different place. It’s hard to sleep.” Your excuse.

“Mmm. Yeah. No door. Bothers me.” A pause. Stretching on, and on, the only sound being the menu music playing in the background, a low level of audio static to fill the silence. “Isn’t it funny? Its a fort. And it isn’t properly fortified at all. It’s pr’carious. Ready to fall at the slightest assault. Just toss one of your stupid sm’ppets up there an the whole thing’d come crashing down.”

You hum an agreement, “It looks comfortable, at least.”

“...yeah. It shoots my clumsy attempts outta the water for pure comfort points.”

“It’s too bad you don’t sleep.”

“...yeah. S’too bad.”

The door upstairs closes, but John doesn’t return. You don’t pull out your phone to check the time. You don’t need to, once you pick out the red blocky numbers on the cable box beneath the TV: 5:12 am.

You don’t dare move as those red eyes finally slide lazily shut, a quiet, “Don’t leave…” fades away to nothing but steadily slowing breaths, drifting off to sleep. 

Sometime between before and right now, the hand that previously curled into the fabric of your pants finds yours resting on your knee.

It’s warm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long chapter is long. So long that I couldn't justify not giving it its own chapter haha.
> 
> Sorry, ya'll will just have to wait on the LaLondes. This conversation was long overdue. :3c


	55. [I1P6] December 3rd, 2006

## Dirk > Contemplate Your Doom

You stretch, pressing your back against the warm brick of the fireplace, crossing your arms on your knees and letting the heat sink through your skull. It’s a wonderful change of pace in comparison to last night, and you feel _almost_ drowsy. 

The crackling of the fire and the rustle of paper as a page being turned act as background noise, and you think you can hear the kids upstairs sometimes, laughing and talking to fill up a silence you hadn’t really realized was there. Dave never spoke at home unless it was during your all too brief and infrequent crossings. Sounds were relegated to city noises, typing keys, and kept confined within the admittedly well tuned speakers fitted snugly around your ears.

You drag yourself away from that, and back to this room, using the bits and pieces to build a mental image. You don’t even need to open your eyes, the image comes to you readily--a handsome gentleman under a sharp hat, reading the morning newspaper by the light of a strange stained glass jester inspired lamp. It’s a quaint image even in modern times, and a downright ancient one to your future born and bred self. 

It’s nice, the way the heat soaks through your shirt--a dark green today--and settles underneath your skin; you definitely aren’t built for this chill. If you were a bit further along in your sleep deprivation, you’d put money on this shit actually brute forcing your brain into submission by the power of downright hypnotizing coziness when combined with the stolen blankets lying across your knees.

She’d be offering you cookies, you think, if she were here. She’d _definitely_ be laughing at how ridiculous you look, curled up like--

“You look like nothing so much as a sleepy housecat,” Another page turning, and you crack and eye open, complete with a blurry glare across the room that slowly resolves into something less chaotic. Dan is peering at you over the edge of The Seattle Times, probably hiding a smile behind the damned edge of the paper. You don’t dignify the comparison with a response, instead wondering if Davepeta would enjoy a fireplace to stick near their pile in the meteor. They liked to talk about sleeping in sunbeams and shit like that, and you _know_ that isn’t a thing in space, so maybe you should look into it. Could you alchemize one somehow? Do they make portable fireplaces? 

Would you even remember to look this up later if you make another one of those tenuous mental notes about it?

“I could have turned the fire on out here for you last night.”

“Wouldn’t that be a fire hazard?” Your mouth forms the words before your brain catches up to them, which is good, because you hadn’t consciously realized he was talking to you. But you do now, and you don’t really miss a beat, “Besides, it wasn’t like I was the one to sleep out here. The boys might have roasted in that blanket temple of theirs.”

The paper lowers and--yep, there was a half smirk dancing beneath the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. You aren’t entirely sure why he wears that thing indoors, but you suppose you can’t say much, with your family’s propensity toward everlasting eyeware. “It must have been my imagination then; seeing you down here this morning with a head in your lap?”

“Dave was worried.” No one was supposed to see that. It’s not like you could have moved after Dave had shifted from just touching to full on pillow mode. Not when he’s actually _fallen asleep._ And stayed asleep for what amounted to several hours until you heard John thundering down the stairs, leading you to shift the sleeping boy and skedaddle in time for the other boy to all but tackle him awake.

Should you ask?

“Was John okay? This morning?”

The sigh is tired, as he folds the paper onto his lap, smoothing out the folds and creases with a careful movement as he gathers his thoughts. After a moment, he finally approaches you with a quiet, “I don’t suppose you’ve ever had experience with sleepwalking?”

Sleepwalking?

“Can’t say I have,” It isn’t a lie; not really. You highly doubt he’s referring to a _dreamself_ floating off into oblivion. Run of the mill sleepwalking wasn’t really anything you’ve ever had to deal with, given your presence in a solitary bastion and disinclination towards sleep. You try to remember if Davepeta ever mentioned John being prone to something like that, but they were surprisingly reticent when it comes to talking about their--Dave’s friends. 

Thinking back to last night, you recreate the scene on the roof, piece by stuttering piece. The unresponsiveness. Lack of socks. Missing his glasses. You’re not even sure if the kid had been shivering. Yeah, you could see sleepwalking. “That’s gotta be rough; especially with those stairs. Dave has nightmares sometimes, but he’s always fully conscious on his midnight juice raids.”

“Yes, it is indeed a miracle he hasn’t tripped down them. When it became fairly regular...I had the railings installed,” He tilts his head up, and you notice something you hadn’t before. The dusk-grey metal railings run along the edge of the upper hallway and the stairs where Jane’s house had only had open spaces. They blended in with the general decor, so you hadn’t even really thought about it in the dark, much less yesterday when you’d done your best to avoid _thinking_ about this room and Jane’s portrait hanging above your head. “I also purchased a baby gate for the stairs, but he resents the idea I’d need such a thing, so he keeps trying to hide it from me.” That one was almost a laugh.

That locked door. The door you’d stopped and wondered about, because what was the point in locking a second story door? Sleepwalking child-proofing would do it. “How could you even _plan_ for something like that? Does he know?”

“It’s less about planning, and more about preparation and awareness. Keeping the floor clear and the doors locked, for example. He’s impossible to wake up, unfortunately.” He’d pulled out a pipe at some point, currently working at polishing it with a folded orange handkerchief he’d just casually pulled out of his _sleeve_ . Not his sylladex, but straight out of his cuff. Mysteriously appearing objects aside; circular motions begin to buff out smudged up spots that you couldn’t see from here--if they existed at all. A nervous tick perhaps? Even someone as collected as Dan Egbert appeared to be hide surprising fidgets, “And no, he does not. It is part of the reason he takes such offense to the baby gate. He thinks the whole thing is one big prank I’ve been playing on him for months. Absolutely refuses to so much as entertain the idea. If I didn’t know any better, I’d suspect _he’s_ playing the prank on me; but after the walls...well, what is something else to watch for?”

A heavy, deep breath, then a quick exhale, and it’s as if the previous dourness just slides right off him, to be replaced with polite curiosity. It’s odd, seeing another mask go up; one so different from yours or Dave’s, but a mask all the same, “I’m sorry, I don’t think I actually answered your question. He is alright, and won’t remember a thing. John has gotten very good at deflecting any suggestion that there is anything wrong, and likely will continue to do so until he manages to hurt himself. It is merely my job to try and make sure he does not.”

You nod, reading the ‘let us drop the topic now’ plea in the way he flicks the paper open again.

Doors locked. Ribbons of guilt gnaw at your insides and make you fidget, unable to get lost in even the fireplace’s warmth. You’re just lucky nothing happened. You wish you’d known. If you’d known you could have--

You could have what? _Not_ gone outside to freeze the feeling out of your limbs? You probably could have lived with that. Survived the night with those poisonous feelings eating away at your insides under the staring eyes of giant clown portraits? Not so much.

They still itch at you, like tiny pinpricks burrowed under your skin and taking the initiative to crawl about every now and then just to keep you on your toes; but it wasn’t as bad now. Whether that was the daylight talking, or the shitton of emotional karma you’d earned by spilling your guts last night, who can say?

There’s a third possibility; which is probably the more likely one. The fact that your impending doom is occupying more of your mental fuck creating facilities and there’s no room left for the far more mundane, given it’s regular presence in your life for literal months, if frustrating Cal-induced trauma.

It’s December 3rd, 2006. 

You turn 17 today.

Davepeta turns 17 today.

Dave turns 10 today.

Rose Lalonde arrives today.

Roxy--

There’s no _guarantee_ she’s coming at all. Maybe Rose was traveling as an unaccompanied minor. 

It could happen. Roxanne Lalonde was a head of a fucking research lab, not a stay at home workaholic who could just pack up and leave for a week. There’s no way she’d be able to pull herself away from that kind of grounded location based shit for any extended period of time. You make that argument to yourself, ignoring the fact that you know that Rose is only here today and tomorrow, which spoke of a constrained schedule. Dan was _also_ making no move to go pick up the little girl, indicating she had secured some method of transportation.

It could happen, but it wasn’t bloody likely.

You consider asking Dan if you could, you don’t know, spend the day organizing the shed in the yard. All day. You could even sleep out there. It was cozy enough, from what you’d seen getting the folding table and chairs, which were set up in the kitchen, holding an already prepared and covered lunch for when the final guest arrived--

“Balloons.” The raised eyebrow is question enough, so you elaborate, “I’m gonna set up the balloons and streamers.”

A slow thoughtful nod, as the other man tilts his wrist to check the time on a small silver watch, nestled under the gray fabric of his dress shirt, “I suppose it is about time for that; If their flight arrived on time they should be here within the hour.”-- _they_ christ, way to chop the head right off your delusions with a quick, clean stroke--“I left all the accoutrements underneath the folding table if you want to get started--do you need help?”

A hand over yours, guiding the motions. How to peel. How to chop. How to combine. How to _create._

“Nah, I got this.”

You too, can be an adult. For some reason that thought sticks in your mind as you uncoil, shifting shoulder and popping shit back into place with a satisfying crack that helps to loosen some of the nervous tension that is pretty much your life now. It’s a really weird sensation, reminding you uncomfortably of listening through the curtain, realizing there was so _much_ you were supposed to know. To do. To say. So much you owe to people in order to be half the person to _appear_ competent, much less _be_ the person Dave needs. 

You _hate_ feeling incompetent. You hate failing even more.

Especially failing at something so simple as being a functioning human being.

Then again, Nietzsche’s Abyss. If you considered your splinters monsters, what right did you have to claim to be human?

Fuck no, not this shit again.

You’re Done.

No more philosophical wanderings before midnight. You’ve made it to the kitchen and pull up to the table. Sure enough, your hooked fingers snag on a plastic loop, and you drag it free, revealing a small pile of unopened decorations. An adlibbed rhyme drops your contribution to into your other hand, a package of red and black balloons. The rest of this stuff was provided by Mr. Egbert himself, who had reassured you there was always a reason to keep streamers and confetti and other such items around his house.

It made you want to ask; but the small self-satisfied smile had a surprising about of fierceness behind it.

Balloons. Right.

You pull out some sort of sparkly ass string and place it on the table, and then turn your attention back to your target, dumping the package of black rubber shit in favor of the red.

Plastic packaging crinkles in your grip, ripping open on a deliberately weakened seam. Trapped air releases with a hiss, rubber and other unnamed chemicals filling the air and burning your nose as you stifle a sneeze into your elbow.

Fuck that noise. At least you don’t have to put that shit into your mouth. 

The box containing the helium tank is easily nudged out from under the bright red tablecloth, directions printed in large letters on the box. 

You can do this.

It inflates. Simple.

_If it keeps you out of sight when Roxy arrives, giving you a chance to formulate some sort of proactive approach to the situation then...well, that was just a bonus._

You tie off the balloon, then add some sparkly shit.

 _Maybe it won’t be so bad_.

It floats to the ceiling, red against white.

_Maybe she’ll drop Rose off and go._

A black one this time.

_Maybe she won’t take one look at Dave and realize exactly who he is._

Rinse and Repeat.

_Maybe she won’t even recognize you._

The ceiling begins to fill with floating rubber, oblong spheres, sparkly shit dangling and winking near waist height.

_It’s been at least a decade, right? Since you moved to Houston?_

Rinse and Repeat.

_She did kill you._

Rinse and Repeat.

_You’d never be that lucky anyway._

You can’t let this repeat.

Fuck you should tell Dan. Before she gets here.

This could go south.

_Getoutgetoutgetout_

But what could you say?

How can you tell a story you don’t know?

You release the balloon you were strangling, letting it join the red and black patchwork sky painted on the ceiling above you. Maybe you should have picked some different colors. Dan had more in the bag. Blue and purple and green and--

You blink, and you’re in front of the swinging doors, looking out over the living room. He looks up as you enter.

“Dan?” He looks up from his paper, and you take a steadying breath, “Could you come give me a hand? There’s somethin’ I reckon you should know.”

Even if you don’t have the full story, you owed him a warning, at least. That way he can decide if he wants you out of his hair for this, or not.

You’ll take it either way. Dave would have a fine time without you here.

  


## Dave > Answer Chum

It starts with a text.

You don’t hear it, sitting cross legged on the spare chair John’s dad had oh so thoughtfully lugged up the stairs and into the room earlier. You'd recognized it as the second of the tall, frontal support pillars, and then gave it a small moment of silence in honor of its service. You knew that John’s mid-morning pounce, and subsequent kidnapping of your distressed damsel self from your Bro’s Evil clutches--even half asleep you’re _sure_ he’d been there, even if John just blinked and insisted you’d been alone--would leave the fort undefended, and a ripe target for the pillaging power of the hovering parental armies to descend upon and raze the structure to the ground.

That small moment passed, and you mourned. 

Immediately afterwards, you’d leapt up from your makeshift seat on John’s Magic Box of Mischief and Merryment (or something) and then thankfully plopped your bony ass down on a proper _cushioned_ piece of furniture; diving right back into yours and John’s increasingly ridiculous back and forth dance of “oh you’ve _gotta see this”_ stealing the mouse and trying to one up each other. It’s the exact same dance you do all day from home, in your own chair with it’s Dave-shaped lumps, and with your own music blasting from your own headphones but--

But it’s different. It’s not even _remotely_ comparable to the satisfaction you find in being able to watch John’s stupidly expressive face morph and shift as he takes in your carefully curated content, artfully arranged and expertly cooked.

Of course when he breaks down cackling in the middle of what was intentionally chosen to look like a grossfest, you find yourself appreciating your own masterful skill of presentation. You are so good at this shit.

Eventually the flashing light does grab your eye when you look away during a particularly dull youtube advertisement. You grab the device off the desk and thumb it open, expecting Bro shooting you something about lunch or dinner or some equally domestic shit; but no, it isn’t Bro at all. There’s two active conversations, one from Stevens wishing you a happy birthday--which is something you hadn’t really expected, but hey, he bought your affection with strawberry tarts and homework help so you’ve solidly filed him on your B tier. But B-Tier has nothing on A-tier, and that second text is Grade A, top priority friend material and well you’ll just have to hope you remember Stevens later.

 _Rose was arriving today._ You hadn’t forgotten, but the knowledge fills you with a nervous excited glee tham makes you want to bounce, only you’re too cool to bounce. So you pounce instead; pulling it open much to John’s annoyed pouting because it’s _his_ turn to pick and you aren’t paying attention _Dave._ You shush him, babbling something; oh man, it's a new low when you don’t even care enough to register your own shit, isn’t it? You’ve got it so far down to an art it’s  all on autopilot now. 

John doesn’t seem to appreciate your verbal artistry because he just rolls your eyes and lets out a huff, telling you to just get on with it and answer your girlfriend already.

First of all, ew no. Gross. Rose has seen the slime that cakes the walls and gears inside of your head and you’re fairly sure you don’t want anyone who can look at the hulking scurrying personification of your issues with such a clinical, if manically curious gleam in her purple text. At least not like that. Top notch friend material though, you’re glad about your conversion.

Second of all, this was _totally_ not fair, why are you always the one getting paired up with your friends?? Rose calls you and John Soul Mates and he calls you two girlfriends (plural. Not just possessive and gee thanks John you’re a bro) but really you need to think of an appropriately lovey term of endearment for their relationship to complete the triad and get your revenge.

What time was it? 2:15? With exactly 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, okay that’s enough. If the timestamp said _that_ and your own trip took--while this isn’t an active counter, you paw through your own flow of experience and count it _back_ , just like scrubbing through a video if the video was some sense of continuity that you put your finger on and feel the pulses and immediately pull the information out of your ass--

“Uh Dave?” 

“Huh?” Damn it. Hombre just made you lose the thread and you really don’t feel like finding it again. It’s fine, you still have a ballpark; and if it’s correct...

“Come on dude tell me what it is! Did she send you a poem or some mushy stuff and that’s why you’re all off in la la land?”

“The only reason she’d ever get anywhere _near_ the realm of mushy would be as a hilariously sarcastic barb wrapped up in flowery prose delivered with the full intention of extricating your head from your ass..” 

John scoffs, “You never know; maybe she _likes_ to write.”

“If she did it wouldn’t be _love poetry_ dweebert and you know it. It’d be all like Poe-etry, if you catch my drift; all Telltale Heart oh look someone actually got murdered in a fit of induced paranoia instead of a whirlwind love story like Romeo and Juliet.”

Although you suppose people get murdered in that too, so maybe it’s not the best example. Basically purple prose littered gothic horror versus conventional how harry met sally or whatever.

Why do you know this, someone might wonder. 

Well. You know a lot of things; thrown into your shitty references folder for just such an occasion.

“...actually yeah that sounds more accura--hey! Stop trying to distract me! What’d she say?”

Snickering as John makes a swipe for your phone, you push the rolly chair away, the motion sending it swiveling as you do so. As soon as you stop spinning you let out a drawn out “Weeeell…” while raising the phone as if it held the Word of God and written destinies that will help Shape the Future or some such bullshit.

“She said--”

“That she’s--” 

You very much resist the urge to do do do doooo an iconic key-item getting theme, and then laugh, as John does it for you. 

“--HERE!”

“WHAT! Dave! Why did you _say_ that in the first place!!” He jumps off his chair, making a beeline for the door, and then stops, hand on the knob for weirdly poster-less door considering how cover the rest of the walls are, “Is she like, _here,_ here or just landed at the airport here or what!?”

Hm, well, you _suppose_ that’s a good distinction to make. You rub at your tragically whiskerless chin, all baby faced and shit, though if Bro’s any indication you’ll just end up with pathetic wisps and patchy stubble if he’d actually remember that shaving was _actually_ a thing so you’re not exactly holding on to any dreams of exquisit facial hair.

You try to imagine Bro with a full beard the same white-blonde color of both your hair and it’s so ridiculous that it leaves you wheezing with stifled laughter. Like some sort of stone-faced skinny ass i-don’t-give-a-fuck santa. 

“Daaave--”

Something goes whizzing at your head, a magic prop snatched from the door-side table, and you dodge it without even interrupting your wheeze. You are the King at dodging shit. If you can dodge Bro you can dodge anything and John ain’t got nothing on your Bro. You manage to kick your brain away from it’s random facial hair tangent and smile at him, shoulders still threatening to shake but you bring that shit under an easy, suave steel gripped fist and flash him the barest hint of a challenge.

“We’ll just need to find out won’t we?”

Not everything needs to turn into a race. You know this. You also know Dad Egbert didn’t really approve of the last time you two half tumbled-without-actually-falling down those stairs. You both lock eyes--and you can _feel_ the weight of his gaze through your rad lenses as if he could see the red of your eyes just as easily as you can see those blue peepers-- but the implication in your voice has him tense, just _waiting_ for you to bolt. You lazily roll off the chair to your feet, and then…

You just wait. John quivering like an arrow in the bowstring, and you just stand there with a lazy slouch, arms crossed, and fingers tapping against your elbow. 

It’s a stalemate. He won’t move unless you do. You’re just content to make him sweat.

Until the doorbell rings, a distant, muffled toll, and yet somehow at the same time it keens in your head. Bells. The sun rising. Warmth at your back. 

John _bolts_ , and you call out after him-- “Be careful on those stairs, dawg! Don’t want your old man catching you do we?”

And then? You follow. _Leisurely._ You captchalogue your phone, pick at the neck of your shirt. Smooth out your hair and adjust your shades with a quick glance in the reflection of John’s monitor. Fashionably late; that’s what you’re aiming for. Rose already one-upped you by _arriving_ later than you did. You gotta at least put on a show for-- _for who? You aren’t fooling anyone--_ the audience.

You hear them before you can see them, lingering in the shadow of John’s door, and then totally not sneaking out to lurk like a goblin next to the railing along the edge of the quote un quote hallway. They weren’t solid, but they break up your silhouette enough and you’ll take them as a good blind so you can scope out the encroaching legion. Reconnaissance is key after all, and those really aren’t butterflies lurking in your stomach, nope not at all. You hadn’t had the chance to get nervous when John literally tackled you out of your funk, but now you have time to think and totally ace this first impression so there’s no need to be nervous at all.

Voices carry.

“Mother please restrain yourself; crushing my friend in his own home is hardly proper behavior in _any_ state.”

“Oh I’m sorry honey, here,” You suppress a snicker at John’s exaggerated gasping, you’re fairly certain the dude doesn’t _need_ to breathe because that’s as hammed up as one of those thanksgiving spreads in the hallmark movies or you’ll eat your phone. “Are u the birthday boy?”

 _Gasp “_ \--not till april ma’am--” John sputters.

“ _No_ mother.” Rose huffs before John even gets a chance to respond, “We’ve already gone over this multiple times, both with, and without the aid of certain substances. It is _Dave’s_ birthday. John just introduced himself moments ago; John Egbert, whose father you spoke to over the phone? To arrange this venture in the first place?”

“I know that Rosie gawd. I’m just excited! U spend so much time locked away in ur room, it’s only natural for the curiosity come sneakin out. It’s good to finally meet u John! Whenever I can wrangle a non sarcastic word outta Rosie its always about her bois and it's always good. She was so excited when your Dad proposed this shindig, u dont understand”

“Uh, um, thanks! Ms. Uh. Lalonde?”

“Aren’t u a polite one! I’ll need to extend my compliments to ur Dad, he’s got some nice digs. V cozy.”

“He’s in the kitchen, ma’am but--”

“John, where’s our esteemed compatriot? Shouldn't we be joining him instead of standing here in the entryway?"

“He was supposed to be right behind me! DAVE! Quit being a SLOWPOKE!!” That last line was literally shouted up the stairs, back in your direction. The hairs on the back of your neck began to prickle. Whelp. Guess you’re busted. 

“If he does not wish to join us, perhaps we could go to him?” Rose offers thoughtfully, perhaps a bit too thoughtfully. You aren’t nervous. At all. And to prove you aren’t nervous, you uncurl yourself from your slightly concealed position. You don’t let it show, brushing it off to sweep your way down the stairs and into a much better view of the living room once you hit the landing, including a red-faced John shifting awkwardly before a _tall_ lady with goddamn that’s a tight white dress-coat, honey blonde-hair and a wide smile. Maybe not quite as tall as Bro but damn, you want to stand her next to John’s dad because you’d bet she’d end up just a smidge taller. 

Standing just off to the side is another, smaller figure. If people can tell you and Bro are related, there’s no doubt about this relationship whatsoever. Game set and match. Her hair matched her mother’s, but instead of a smile, those lips are pulled thin in irritation, blue-almost purple eyes flicking up the stairs and then they _pierce_ right through you-- _shadowed beneath an orange hood her eyes twinkle in the reflection from the green fire goddamn you are fucking_ **_alive_ ** _\--_

“Oh hey Rose,” You give her a small wave before settling the hand on that weird mismatched railing, feeling the wood slide against your slick palms. “‘Sup?”

“Dave,” She inclines her head, and you find you know it. You know every angle, the softening of her eyes as you _cooly_ take a few more steps, as if you aren’t just holding yourself back from pulling a John and literally _flying_ down the stairs in order to wrap her in a desperate hug. You had the others, but she was the only one _there_ for--fuck she’s been the one helping you piece yourself together piece by itty bitty little piece while John would wait and swoop in with the glue, cementing them into place with a smile. It’s no wonder you feel like you’ve known her for years, her face settling into that same picture frame labeled Rose Lalonde as if it’s always been there because of course it had. It’s like time itself has frozen, even the beat of your heart, in your bones stilling.

“I was wondering if I would ever get to experience the pleasure of your companionship; you seemed inclined to allow us to languish in your absence, whittling the time away with no mooring, no anchor, yearning for the charisma of your distinguished presence as if it were not the catalyst that set this moment into motion.”

“A lady’s gotta primp and prep before her grand entrance, don’t you know.”

“Of course, it was entirely my mistake to not take your well established vanity into account.”

And then, like all moments, the beat resumes, and you hear a quiet intake of breath.

“Dave...u said?” Rose’s mother drags your attention away, and you look out, because where you are, standing on the stairs you’re at about the right height to not have to look up. You don’t take another step, holding your ground. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced. Roxanne Lalonde.”

There’s...something there. Something different from the bubbly, cheerful voice you heard from upstairs. It’s a note, a strand of discord in the weave of sincerity. It has your hackles raised even as you channel every single experience you’ve ever had facing Bro in order to not let it show; even as you cover it up with what you like to call a winning smile. Your superstar smile. The one you practiced for hours in the mirror because you know you'll be famous one day, it's just a matter of time. 

You won't hide behind your anonymity and you _will_ own that shit. You will be able to face people one day.

“Dave.” You don’t quite miss the expression change flit across Rose’s face, at the full body flinch, at the way her hands curled into fists before being shoved into the pockets of her puffy purple jacket, thick and probably all full of down and shit, perfect for a northwestern pacific day, “Dave Strider.” 

That sure is a curious expression, and you oddly wonder if you made a mistake of some sort even if you’ve literally said all of three words to her and two of them are your name. You know her relationship with her mother is rocky, but this isn’t rocky. 

This is locking yourself in a nuclear bunker and finding someone launched hell in a literal hand grenade in behind you.

“I see.” Maybe that feeling was right because something sure did change, even if you can’t put a finger on it. You don’t like this. Even as her smile widened, eyes crinkling, and hair bobbing with her nod, “It’s a pleasure to meet u Dave. Have u traveled far? How are u finding it? It’s quite a different climate from Texas isn’t it?”

Uh. You glance at Rose; who looks back at you with a cool blankness that makes you think of _bro_ of all people. Is she feeling it? Is it just you? Is this _normal?_ When she notices your glance the ice thaws even just a little bit, letting you see a flash of resignation and a small, almost imperceptible nod.

Okay. This is hella weird. You cross your arms, tapping two fingers against the inside of your elbow. Come on, Dave, just ground yourself. Go with the beat, count if you need to. Just keep it cool, and don’t react to the fact that your nerves are screaming at you that there’s something wrong and oh look Rose can see it too you aren’t crazy. 

“Yeah; I don’t think I’ve ever had a freezing temperatures so much as brush a patch of my poor sensitive skin; none of the warnings could have prepared me for this. Although I kinda hope it snows at some point between now and when we leave because I don’t think I’ve ever seen snow and wouldn’t that be rad? Seeing my first snow, with all my buds, best birthday present ever don’t you think?”

“Aw man, if I’d known that I would have brought my cloud seeder and we coulda totes had a small localized snow storm for u. I guess we’ll have to make do.”

...are you really just talking about the _weather_ with _Rose’s mom._ “You’re telling me there’s such a thing as a _cloud-seeder_ and you _have one_?”

“Yup! Mad scientist privilege!  ;) Unfortunately I left it in my other coat so we’ll need to take a raincheck on that. Or a snow check; would u accept a snow check, Dave?”

Why why why this isn’t _bro_ was it just _all_ adults? You stare at her smile and intended playful wink, and you see _nothing._ Nothing you can read. It’s there, and you know what you’re supposed to see, but it’s void of any warm fuzzies you feel should be crawling up your spine right now.

It can’t be all adults because Mr. E was intimidating but he was pretty cool, and Stevens needed to seriously grow a pair, but neither of them make you want to slap up a mask and _hide_. 

“Uh. Sure. It’s not like presents are supposed to be a thing, not really, this whole thing was kinda my present from my bro so I’m like totally cool without creating an unexplained meteorological phenomenon for the express entertainment of all of what five people?”

“Your brother?” She lingered on the question just a tad too long, you think. Or maybe you’re just starting to panic and therefore everything is moving really slow, but no, you’ve got the ticking always going, you haven’t lost the time, not yet. “Don’t u worry ur cute lil head about that, we got presents. So many presents. Can’t have a birthday without presents. Ofc I didn’t know what u’d like, and rosie was hells of unhelpful--”

“Excuse me for wanting to use my ideas for _my_ own gift for _my_ friend, Mother.” Rose suddenly cuts in, wielding her words like a physical knife made of 100% glacial _ice_ , dayum, “Speaking of friends, I would like to spend some time with them now. We children must be awfully boring; I’m sure John’s dad and Dave’s brother would be willing to accommodate you.”

“Rosie--”

“The young lady does have a point, we probably should allow the children the space to properly introduce themselves. This is, afterall, their first meeting and we shouldn’t be getting in their way.”

_Oh thank god. Mr. E to the rescue._

John’s Dad pushed his way through the swinging doors from the kitchen, using a small hand-towel to dry his hands while moving through the open living room to join the fuckin’ party, “My apologies for the tardiness, Ms. Lalonde. Your arrival caught me with my hands in the dough, in both the literal and figurative instances of the phrasing. If we could convene to the kitchen, we can continue this conversation over some freshly baked cookies, and the children can be on their way.” A side-long glance to his son, “John, you should show them to your room.”

“Show them??? But we’ve been up there all day! Can’t we just, you know, play video games down here or something? We just got the new mario kart and I wanted to play it all--”

“Nah, man, I totes wanna surround myself in your collection of terrible movie posters. It’ll be fun! Rose hasn’t been completely exposed to your shit taste yet and that’s a cherry that _needs_ to be popped to totally understand the egbertian experience.”

“...a crass means of putting it, but yes, I concur with wanting a change of scenery. I’m sure the video game system will still be here when the atmosphere is a sight less chilly.” 

She’s staring at her mom, with that pointed frown. There’s a flicker of expressions that cross the older woman’s face, most of which you can’t exactly read since you just met the lady and your experience in reading people is limited to just One example with two modes, either a million microfidgets or just stone cold silence, and the probably exaggerated storytelling expressions you’d picked up from as-seen-on-tv actors. 

Whatever that exchange had been, she firms up, and the smile comes out, only you can’t trust it, it feels just a shade too wide. “That sounds lovely, Mr. Egbert. Please, my name is Roxanne, but you can call me Roxy.” 

“Dan,” He holds his free arm out to Rose’s mom, whose’ fair skin tints the slightest bit pink before accepting the hand graciously. As it fades, so too does a fraction of the warmth in her voice; something about it sends your already raised hackles into the stratosphere.

“I assume Dirk will be joining us?”

The use of that _name_ viciously cuts down the last shred of hope you were clinging to that this was just a big coincidence and your suspicions didn’t actually have merit. Whelp.

“Of course.”

They cross the room with a casual, “Be good Rosie! John! Dave! Have a good time.” to which Rose just rolls her eyes and all but stomps up the stairs, pushing her way through the space between you and the wall which you vacate quite quickly because hell naw are you gettin’ in her way when she’s looking like that. Although, to be fair, it’s not really stomping, her movements are far lighter than your description gives them credit for, but goddamn that’s what it feels like to you; full on get the fuck outta my way or I’ll run you over with a bulldozer stompage.

She’s mad and you’re fucked up and you don’t know why, but eventually you manage to drag a whining John away from his precious mario kart as you try _very hard_ not to hear voices in the kitchen, but like you noted earlier, voices _carry_ and you can’t block your ears, not really. You pick up on the implications, and that's not cool. That’s the opposite of cool. And goddamn John can be patient about the Mario Party it’s your birthday and you don’t want to feel like some snot nosed brat trying to hide from Mommy and Daddy having a row in the other room.

...Even if you are, actually, hiding upstairs; though in this metaphor they aren’t _both_ your parents, they are parentals, and Mommy is Rose’s Mommy and Daddy is--

Gog. You aren’t even going to finish that thought, nope, nada, not happening. Bro is a _bro_ and not…

Dad’s don’t…

Christ this is fucked up. You’re Fucked Up. Brothers fight. Brothers can be cruel and still be--

Whatever the hell you two are.

The door shuts behind you--maybe with a _little_ too much force. John isn’t pleased with the situation, but, oblivious as he appeared to be to the atmosphere downstairs-- _or maybe you’re just sensitive?_ But that doesn’t make sense because Rose was in just as much of a weird pickle--John still let you drag him away from his precious game system whether it was because of the look on your face, or maybe the tone or your voice or--something. 

He sits down on his bed, as you throw yourself on the floor, and Rose busies herself with perusing a particular movie poster that you can already tell holds no interest other than the fact that it’s _something_ to focus on. “Hey, you two okay?”

Rose picks at her nails, “Yes. Why would I not be? I _do_ have to live with the woman."

Liar.

“Because that was awkward as hell back there, that’s why. I think I need an adult. Only not an adult because adults are the fuckin' problem.” You throw your arm over your face, knocking your sunglasses askew but you don’t care. You think if you listen, you can still hear their voices through the floor-- _John’s room is right above the kitchen, isn’t it?--_ but you don’t and it’s all in your imagination.

“What? Awkward??” Chalk one up the oblivious Egbert; you could peek under your arm to where he’s sitting on the bed but you don’t because you can just imagine him glancing back and forth between the two of you like a confused pigeon following someone’s sandwich. Or your bird bro back at home when you walk in with a handful of baby carrots. Then he opens a bucktoothed beak to warble, “I dunno, Rose’s mom seemed nice to me???”

“Yes, she _seems_ nice.” Rose acknowledges, but that doesn’t sound like that’s the end of things; she continues as you roll onto your side, pushing your shades up into your hair so they aren’t at least aren’t dangling haphazardly off your face like a dude clinging to a 2 inch crack in a sheer rock face with nothing more than chutzpah and fragile human fingers. “If you merely observe the surface level layer ironic housewife routine, all absent smiles and distant eyes and enthusiastic gifts before flitting off, motherly duty discharged.”

“You know, that doesn’t really sound like, you’re ‘okay’” John does little air quotes with his fingers, and then goes back to picking with his sheets. “You know?”

Just a little shrug, and the girl gives up pretending to examine the poster. You see her consider the abandoned computer chairs, before settling herself primly on the floor, only a few feet from you. You could like, totally reach out and touch her puffy purple sleeve, which she’s now slipping her arms out of to let the Actual Winter Coat fall on the floor. 

“John, if you didn’t get it, you probably won’t get it. Yeah she seemed nice but there was something seriously weird down there.” You resist the urge to squirm under both sets of eyes, reluctantly pushing yourself up and folding your legs in a loose cross under you. It’d be a little hard to spring to your feet like this, but hell, you don’t _have_ to be ready to go go go anymore; there’s a door between you and anyone else, Bro is probably all hells of occupied, and you’re hanging with your actual bros. You can fucking relax, okay? “What I want to know is what the fuck was up with my _name??_ You saw that too right Rose?? I wasn’t just reading too far into shit? God she knows my Bro doesn’t she? She knew his name--”

“God _chill out, Dave._ Of _course_ she knew his name! My Dad probably talked to them both--”

“He didn’t.” Rose’s answer cut off John’s what-if scenario, and you snap your attention away from your bro-friend to your girl-friend, and not the type of friend that would not have a dash in the moniker to break up that kettle of implications. “If he had, I likely wouldn’t be here at this very moment, talking with you both about this...unpleasant subject.”

“Did you _know_ that would happen?”

“Know? No. But I had a feeling things would go...poorly as soon as introductions were offered.” She sighs, looking up, focusing on *you* this time. The glamor and shoujo sparkles of your first meeting have faded and you look past the giddy realization of _rose rose it's rose you missed her_ and for the first time you notice how _tired_ she looks. There’s bags hanging from her eyes that put Bro's to shame and the slightest crease of a wrinkle and you're struck with recollection that you aren't the only one with sleeping problems, and at least _you_ could get back to sleep after a nightmare, eventually. Rose just always ran until she couldn't anymore and crashed. You don't even want to guess how long she's been awake _now_ what with the travel plans. “I’m sorry, Dave. I considered turning down the invitation entirely to avoid this particular path, since I knew it would ruin the event; but--”

"Nuh, uh, no buts Rose," Stop. Do not pass go. You will not let this shit slide, "the event is not ruined, whatever shit is going on with the parental units they can deal with it. The last day with John has been rad, but it would not be a proper birthday party without all of my best buds, and that includes you." 

"I see. Forgive my assumption then." 

"Assumption not forgiven; you'll need to make it up to me. Reparation for the emotional damages you inflicted on my psyche with the mere suggestion of not coming to my birthday party. That shit can be traumatizing for a kid, yo."

And there's something an eye roll and a huff, which you'll take for a win. Especially since her lips quirk upwards in a way that you know means she's hiding a smile. It's much more obvious than Bro's, "Do you have a preference for cash or credit? Or perhaps some other form of currency? Affection perhaps?” 

“I’ll take a hug for 500, and maybe some answers if you’ve got ‘em.”

“I really don’t have much evidence to support the...hunch if you will. I stumbled across several attempts at unsent letters on the table in the parlor, written in a hand that indicated a moderate to severe level of intoxication that made it hard to read, much less comprehend. I didn’t think much of it, only glancing at it with idle curiosity in case they were left out deliberately for me to find as another salvo in our ongoing conflict; but the only thing I could make out was the addressee’s name.” 

Those eyes, indigo, almost straight up purple--actually just go with the purple, because they are, and if you got to have weird pigment then it made you feel better to know someone like Rose had it too and it wasn’t just you and your brother--locked with yours, and you, offer a strangled, “Strider? _Dirk_ Strider?”

“Dietrich, but from what I gather Dirk is a potential derivative of that name, yes.”

 _Dietrich??_ You mouth the name in some sort of bewildered state of disgust. It feels foreign on your lips; so much worse than _Dirk._ That one felt weird. Like it didn’t match. This one felt downright _wrong._

Rose continues on without you, John watching you both and fidgeting like he wants to jump in and yell ‘TIME OUT’ and stop this whole srs business train while the going’s hot, but he doesn’t, and you like to think it’s because he knows you need this. John’s your buddy, yes, but Rose is your ‘lets get all this hard shit out and on the floor so we can actually fuckin’ clean it up and get on with our lives’ buddy, and this is a metric ton of shit you really don’t want hovering above your head while you play fucking mario kart and dream of cake.

“Once I learned your full name, I was certain, if I told her it matched the one in her letters, the outcome would be most unfortunate; perhaps in the vicinity of friendship extinction level of unfortunate and I...couldn’t do that. I couldn’t throw away our rapport. I decided to cautiously pursue the trip, trying to nudge my wayward mother into dropping me off, and leaving before the introductions, banking on her flitting off to look into the meteorological phenomena she used to justify the trip here, but...” 

Rose rubs at her face, and you find yourself drawn by the dark circles again, “Of _course_ she felt the need to upstage me in my own narrative introduction, butting in and stealing the scene for herself and relegating me to the role of the _exposition fairy._ I really am sorry, Dave, for how ‘hells of awkward’ this entire situation has become.”

"Honestly between us and my imaginary birdbro, I'm really just kind of flabbergasted?  I mean what are the odds? I would have appreciated a heads up, yeah sure, I could have parked my skinny little butt right here in John’s room while you shook her off, but what’s done is fuckin’ done you know? At least they’ve got Mr. E to mediate whatever constitutional issue they got going on--it’s not like they’re exes or something.”

Oh god that’s such a pregnant pause right there.

“No.”

John snickers, a twinkle in his movie obsessed eye. You make the sign of warning. Stay back demon. Begone. “NO.”

“Aw, come on! You never know! This is just like the Parent Trap!”

“John, no. Look at this face.” You scoot across the carpet, and smoosh your face up next to Rose’s without thinking. It’s only after you realize you’re like an inch from her skin before you brain suddenly realizes that’s TOO DAMN CLOSE for having just met but what do you do? You ignore it because you’re committed now, “Does this look like the face of some long lost siblings of a divorce who met entirely by accident one day at Chez Egbert's Internet Camp and we just witnessed mommy and daddy meeting for the first time in a decade?”

You’re focused on John, but Rose’s voice sounds right up by your hear ducts--ears, you mean ears, and her breathy laugh tickles your cheek, “I don’t believe we are living in a piece of media, life is far too messy for that."

"You know a lot of movies are based on a true story--'

"Con Air isn't real, John." 

"I know that, Dave! Geez. I'm just saying! Just because the odds are low doesn't mean it's impossible! How much do _yo_ u know about your Bro anyway?? You've barely said two words to him since you got here. For all you know "

"As sorry as I am to torpedo your dreams, I am well aware of the fact that my mother has never been married. Therefore if anything clandestine were to have happened in our parents' sordid past it would have been out of wedlock, and therefore already derailed the plot to which you seem inclined to shove us into."

“Yeah _well_ I’m just _saying_ if the shoe fits--”

The conversation gets more and more ridiculous, the longer you let it go, but that’s okay, it’s okay because you’ve gotten some of the heavy shit out and now John’s here to chase away the clouds. It’s okay even when you hear the thud of the door closing downstairs. The revving of a car engine. It’s okay when you see Rose flinch, and awkwardly rest your hand on hers. You aren’t quite leaning on each other yet when John’s Dad comes up to tell you the coast is clear,  but you’re pretty damn close.

John doesn’t even bring up Mario Kart for a while, and you silently thank him for it.

If Mr. E is here… Well, you _know_ Bro doesn’t drive.

Looking at her tired, _resigned_ face you decide you’re gonna make sure she has fucking _fun_ today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :3c
> 
> Don't worry, we'll rewind next time.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me in this arc that seems like it'll never end!


	56. [I1P7] The Parent Trap

# Dirk > Stare into the Abyss

 _She’s here_.

You can hear her. Of course you can. Roxy took your same isolated upbringing and went sideways. Where you struggle to raise your voice, hers effortlessly carries. Where you prefer to stop and think and plan, she’s already plowing ahead. It’s like Dave in a way, really. You’d never really wondered how they would get along, but listening intently as those voices drift through the open door to the living room, bantering over a _cloud-seeder_ \--

If you were sitting down you’d be on the edge of your seat. If you could unlock your muscles you’d probably be pacing. But the only thing you can do is bunch the soft fabric of your emerald shirt between your fingers and play with the hem, trying not to think about the way your heart was pounding in your ears, and in your chest, and the taste of blood in your mouth. Your eyes are quite firmly focused out the window, at the tire-swing silently swaying in a slight breeze, at a car leisurely driving by, until--

Water stops running with a hiss of valves closing and blocking the pressurized path. You glance over at a quiet sigh.

Dan pulls away from the sink, having cleaned his hands of the sticky, clinging mixture of flour, chocolate chips, eggs, and who the fuck knows what else. He’d tried teaching you, but your brain held information like a sieve right now, and random baking facts were too small in the grand scheme of things, lacking importance as far as your grey sponge was concerned, and was allowed to just fall through the openings into irrelevance.

He doesn’t immediately leave, like you’d expected, even as he produces another kerchief, a blue one this time, starting to dry the dampness on his hands. 

“Are you going to be alright?”

You shrug, the motion grinding against the lock you’ve otherwise got on nearly everything. This is bad; your instincts scream at you. That you’re going into a _fight_ . You need to be limber, ready to dodge, ready to _move._

“This won’t go well.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes,” It’s the one thing you’re certain of, a phantom pain blossoming in your chest. A corpse lying in a stone bed of dried blood, “Yes, I do.”

You’d told him what you could, quietly, over the hiss of air being pumped into expanding rubber, while he busied himself draping the streamers above the windows adding additional color to the space. 

There wasn’t much to tell, because there wasn’t much you _knew._ You should have said something sooner. Yesterday maybe. The moment he said Rose’s last name. Maybe a bit later, to give yourself the plausible deniability of needing to stew on the topic. But not quite this last minute. You hadn’t wanted to think about it. Hadn’t wanted to speculate and pretend you know what happened.

Growing up together. Falling out. 

_She may hate my guts, but she’ll help you._

Moving away. 

He didn’t ask for details, just listened. Nodded slowly, and then had a good quiet laugh about it. Not at you. Or even at the situation. But at the sheer absurdity and _what were the odds?_

Rather high, as it turns out. You have _thoughts_ about Sburb as a concept; thoughts you lock tight in your brain, about how it tied all of your fucking destinies together in some big ol’ messy knot. Even now, with three of the four players assembled you know the last one is just around the corner, waiting to make her move.

“Do you like cookies?”

Oreos were good, so you’d just nodded numbly, and he rolled up his dark-grey dress sleeves as if there was nothing doing and got to work. By the time you’d run out of balloons--really, you ran out of the helium--you just end up leaning against the counter, falling into a fugue just watching bared muscle flex and move as he worked, hand mixing disparate ingredients into some sort of congealed combined mixture.

That’s how you got here, hearing Roxy from the other room and Dan prepping to leave the bowl full of unbaked cookie dough behind to greet her.

“You haven’t seen her in over ten years. It might not turn out as you expect, Dirk.” Ever the pragmatic one; there isn’t much you could say to that, even if you _have_ evidence to the contrary. Fairly recent evidence. Much more recent than 10 years.

You doubt ‘killed me in a drunken dream’ would be permissible in any court of reality, though. Or the collateral damage that’d wrecked your game-given connection to your splinter self, if you’ve unraveled that particular knot of plausibility correctly. You’d been forced to forge a complete _new_ one from the ashes left behind, and probably--grudgingly--a little bit of help from a reticent brain ghost.

Dan didn’t stand there seeing her coming at you. Seeing her _crying._ Her hands curling into fists and alcohol on her breath and hitting your chest ineffectually. _Get out of my head. Get out. Get out._

_Get out._

She won’t want you here.

You should go.

You don’t say that, because you know what the answer would be. You’d already offered.

_Dirk...no matter how complicated things are with Dave… unless he tells you himself, it would hurt him for you to leave._

Dan spirits himself and his sharp hat and his sensible tie into the living room to welcome the final guests, rescuing the children to allow them to escape upstairs. And get them away from the ground zero of whatever shit is about to go down. Maybe he has an optimistic outlook-- _She’s a charming lady; I’m sure things can be worked out reasonably--_ but you don’t. It’s not like you _want_ shit to blow up--

_Especially today._

But you had your own fucking _sword_ summoned out of nothing and slammed through your chest during your last meeting.

Ice creeps down your spine. Freezing around your heart. It’s almost as if the temperature drops 10 degrees. 20 degrees. Colder than you’d been last night, despite being all but exposed to the elements of mid-winter.

Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration, but you hear her laugh, telling Dan to call her Roxy. Hear the uncharacteristic chill that settles into her voice when she says your name.

Text had been your medium of choice for the most part. Until the game itself, you’d maybe only heard her voice once. Twice. Terrible quality voice calls when you were both finding each other for the first time. The chill courses through you like a terrible wind.

The door into the yard beckons you. If you just _go,_ scale your way to the balcony--even as out of practice as you are, you could probably do it-- you could make your way inside to tell Dave you’ll be going out for a while. At least you won’t just be up and disappearing on him--

No. Dan probably locked it when he came in last night. Text him then, just like when you go to the store. No big. Just skip out and let Roxy do her thing and you’d probably be able to find somewhere out of the cold to exist for few hours until dinner and cake and then--

“Dietrich, it’s been a while hasn’t it?”

That. Name. 

You’d tried to forget that name, even as it was stamped on everything from your bank forms, to your credit cards, to your _plane tickets_ . Like the birthday, it was another reminder of this history you’d rather just sweep into a closet while you took this life as your own. It’ll never be what you had--you’ll never get back your Bro’s pop culture library, or your apartment in the sea, or even squarewave, or sawtooth--but, between your shifting relationship with Dave, and your hesitant, frail but growing confidence in your ability to organize and track the numbers _,_ materials, and even _people_ required to run a business, you were starting to feel like you were making some of this life your own.

And then you run into something like _this._ It’s like running headfirst into a brick wall. A reminder that no, your name isn’t yours. It isn’t the one you synthesized and chose for yourself from snippets of data your Bro left around your house. Even knowing now that shit was all predestined--a mirror for the universe that this existence is a poor copy of--it was _yours._

Dietrich was the creation of the same system that stamped your Birth Certificate several months Too late. You ignore the fact that an official document placing your birthday on the same day as Roxy’s--no you have not looked up her personal files. Okay maybe you have--would be more Accurate than your feral child’s self’s desire to be Like Your Bro. Acknowledging it as more than just _wrong_ feels like it cheapens that connection. 

So like everything else you didn’t want to deal with--you’d just ignored it. Compartmentalize it. And moved on because you had enough shit to worry about between Plush Rumps, and Davepeta, and Dave and this whole shindig and--

Now it gets shoved so far up into your face you now have a brand spankin’ new hole in your head from Roxy’s impeccable rifle shots.

One door, to the other. The yard, and the living room. From freedom and escape from responsibility to--

Taking in the woman framed by the doorway, everything closes around you, purple-patterned walls lit dimly by a mobile of brightly humming stars. The medium creeps forward like it used to, straddling both places, like you have a foot in both. The light from Derse creeps in behind her, rimming her body in a ring of faint blue-white not-light. The word is choked out of you, a faint incline of your head, because you can’t do much else, “Roxy--”

Only, you know that isn’t happening. It can’t be. You unclench your fingers from your shirt and press your hands down on the smooth countertop. The Roxy before you isn’t your friend, it isn’t even the dream Roxy, draped in the remnants of your friend’s legacy, and surrounded by her humming shards.

“Roxanne, please, only my friends call me Roxy.”

That.

Hurts.

You’re back in Egbert’s kitchen, facing down the image of your friend, shoved sideways and warped. The song of her soul and faint murmur of the memory playing in the back of your skull, echoing in the fog. You feel like you can reach out and touch it--you probably can. If you channeled your power, would you be able to see _her?_ See the bits of your silly but sincere friend, broken up and spliced together with the memories of a dead woman?

Christ. What are you even thinking? 

“Now, then, is anyone gonna tell a gurl what all this is about, or r we gonna stare at each other all day, huh?” Dan lingers in the door, but Roxy strides forward. Not backing down, face a mask of pursed lips and hips that your Roxy hadn’t ever grown into. She turns, hands on her hips, sass cocked and ready, glancing between you and Dan and back to you. “I was told this was supposed to be a fun lil shindig for Rosie and her pals, not a St. Andrews couple years too late surprise reunion.”

“It is, a celebration of young Mr. Strider’s birthday; Dirk and I have been decorating for a while, and we’re in the middle of setting up,” With a sweep of the hand Dan indicates the mostly decorated kitchen, “Feel free to take a chair; or perhaps a bite if you are particularly hungry, since I know your timezone is even further ahead than Dirk’s.” He steps up and tugs one of the chairs out from under the red-covered table with it’s covered dishes and upside down glasses, offering it to her. She declines with a small, apologetic shake of the head, refusing to budge, her eyes having finally settled on you with an intensity that makes you want to fidget.

“That’s sweet of u, Dan, but I’m waiting for another answer right now.” You meet her eyes; those pale rose-pink, hardened and narrowed. “I can hardly imagine Dietrich--” You _hate_ that name so much. Especially the sound of the hard ch, at the end, “doing something so domestic as decoratin’”

“Ah, yes, my apologies,” He’s not oblivious to the tension at all, merely acting the gracious host, you guess. In a way--in more than one way, Christ there are _so_ many ways--you feel bad about all this. And yet. You still. Can’t find anything to say. You’re just standing there, saying squat, one hand gripping the counter like you’re gonna snap the damn thing. “Would you like me to leave you two alone for a time? To catch up?”

“No, it’s fine--”

You finally find your voice with a monotone, “Yes. Please.”

He nods once, after giving you a considering look, before whipping out a roll of plastic wrapping and placing it over the dough he’d been working on earlier. It disappears into the fridge, which is already _very_ occupied by four decent sized cakes, but like a subspace pocket, there’s always more room.

“I’ll be in the living room; just please be mindful of the children.”

As he vanishes through the swinging doors, you remember Newt’s words. Children are perceptive. The last thing you want is to drag them into this shit. Anywhere _near_ this shit.

You just hope this goes okay.

You can’t bring yourself to hope for _well._

The silence is fuckin’ painful. A game of chicken where neither of you are willing to move. You know yourself; you like to think you know what she’d be expecting. 

You back down first.

You fold yourself into a second chair, toeing it out to join its empty brethren. She still doesn’t move. Shifting from the sassy hands-on-hips stance of matronly disapproval to something colder, and harder.

You aren’t sure what you’re doing, as you rest a sock-covered foot on the bar beneath the seat, resisting the urge to bounce it. Are you submitting? Or are you defending? Both options grate against what’s left of your ego, but you lean back into the plastic chair and tuck your hands into your arms. 

The action seemed to have meant something, or maybe it was backing down, but something shifts, and she breaks the silence.

“So. Did u actually decorate?”

“Yeah. The balloons are my work,” You incline your head, tearing your eyes away from her and toward the rubber coated ceiling. You probably didn’t need _all_ of them. But you used up all the air. Black and red and blue and green and purple--all familiar shades. It really makes you wonder just how much paradox space likes to stick its fingers in your pies. You suck in a breath.

The words come out in a quiet tumble. “I received your card.”

“Did u now,” There’s almost a thoughtful hmmm there, “How do u know I sent u anything?”

“It’s kinda obvious Rox--” Once you had a moment to think about it and weren’t falling over from sleep deprivation or Davepeta’s disconnect, “How many people do I know in New York? Or a better question, how many people would _bother_ to send me a card.”

“Knowing ur lovely personality, not many,” That same cold smile; “It must not have meant much, if u didn’t bother to write back.”

“Would you have wanted me to? It’s not like we’ve been on speaking terms.” Okay. Okay. Just. Go with it. Even if she’s cold, even if it’s all hefted with the intent to skewer you into little dirk-kebabs, it IS words. Use yours. 

“I know rite, u didn’t even tell me you had a little bro now! I thought u didn’t have family. He looks like u. Except cuter. Def way more polite than u. Where’d u pick ‘im up?” 

You shift minutely, this is getting a bit close to the shit you _don’t_ know. At least no more than--well, at least you remember that scene on the time-line viewer in the meteor; yo--Dave’s Bro standing over a crater, mini-glasses in hand already, “Roxy…”

“Roxanne.”

You sigh.

“Rox, then. I’m not sayin’ that full name.” Your lip curls slightly, it tastes just as bad as _Dietrich._ “You know exactly where he came from. You found _Rose_ didn’t you?”

Maybe you’re gambling a little; but she _works_ for Skaianet. Dave’s _Bro_ had known. 

A layer of that civility peels back, her eyes gleam as she leans forward, “Oh so u _do_ want to bring that up again. Is that what this whole thing is about, Dietrich?”

“It’s Dirk.” Your teeth grind.

“Nah. Thanks. I’m not sayin’ that name.”

“Christ Rox, I’m not here to fight!”

“Oh? Then why r u here then? It seems like a lot of trouble to go through; manipulatin that poor kid and his Dad into this just to get me here to dig up this old shit all over again. Using your own _son_ too! He’s probs _our_ son, if Harley was right about even half the stuff he had knockin’ around in his ol’ noggin. I should sue--get custody. U dont deserve to raise a kid especially if ur’re gonna just use him like that.”

_Use him??_

Okay maybe she has a point. You _don’t deserve_ to have a kid. But fuck it, he was _yours._

Your brother.

“I don’t give a shit about you being here, Rox. It’s Dave’s birthday. It’s dave’s party. It’s Dave’s _friends._ That one has the last name of Lalonde wasn’t my business.”

“Oh yeah? Ur’re so smart _Dietrich_ , I’m sure u can do a lil bit of probability calculations for me real quick. What are the _chances that_ out of the millions of people in the world, that our two kids would meet _online_ and become friends? What are the chances, my lil Rosie would get invited across the flippin’ county, somewhere I needed to go to check on sciency thingamawhatsies, for an _unknown_ friend’s birthday party? I’ll give you a minute.”

“You _know_ why Rox.” God, you aren’t even anxious anymore. You’re just frustrated, “It’s the same way we’re all tangled up together like someone put a skien of yarn through the fucking dryer, rendering it unusable. It’s the game. It’s _always_ the game. They are _players_ . If they didn’t become friends they’d never _play.”_

Just like _you’re a player._ But you don’t know if she knows that yet. The save state was supposed to be the _same_.

“Christ, just, _look;_ Why the fuck would I bother? Dan is literally trying to do something nice for a kid who never had a fucking birthday party; Rose is Dave’s _friend._ I didn’t _need_ to do anything, because the fact that we even _exist_ meant those kids meet.”

She seems to have recovered now, rolling her eyes at you and tossing her hair, “Hells if I know what’s goin on up in that there twisty tie brain of urs; you obvs never trusted me with ur thoughts even before u threw me away like yesterdays news. If u don’t give a shit, then why are u even here? Why didn’t u just go as soon as I walked in? Out the back and gone--I saw u eyeing that door. Coulda just run off like u did 12 years ago--at least then I wouldn’t have to look at ur _face._ Do u even listen to urself? Goin on and on about predestiny and a game so abstract that even Harley couldn’t figure out more than just the basic framework. U always thought u knew more than anyone else. That the rest of us were morons for even tryin to do shit for ourselves--”

Just.

Fuck. 

It.

“Say the word, and I’m gone.”

Oh. You’re standing now. The legs of the chair scraping back as you pull yourself to your full, too tall height. That stops her cold. You press on. “I mean it. One word, and I’m out. I’ll leave the premises. Won’t talk to you and your kid again. I’m not here for you, I’m here for _Dave_ , and if it’s not in the cards then _fine._ ”

“It’s not liek any of this shit mattered to u before!”

“I think, that’s quite enough of that.” That raised voice catches your attention, and yanks, Dan Egbert stands on this side of the kitchen doors. You don’t remember him coming in. You don’t remember much outside of _Roxy_ and that’s strange because you always keep some level of situational awareness. “Now, I wasn’t trying to listen, but you two are getting _loud_ . If I let this continue as is, you’re going to bother the children and that is something _none of us want._ Isn’t that correct? _”_

 _Thank fucking god._ Shaken by how deep you’d been dragged in, you just nod, not really trusting your words. If you weren’t, well, _you,_ you’d be trembling, instead you’ve locked down tighter than Hal’s grip on the network of your tiny one-apartment island’s intranet. This was--

Fuck. You had some answers, scattered all over the table like wickedly sharp glass shards. It’s not enough to make a picture, not at all. Just mismatched, lost pieces cutting up your hands as you try to gather them up, blood willing up in the cuts and leaving splatters and trails behind. You focus on them--the fragments of answers, and not the hurt seeping through your tattered and aching soul.

“Of--of course not.”

“Excellent,” Dan nods, as if he’d expected no less, “Now, is there anything I can do to help clear up any misconceptions? I understand you two have some sort of history? Dirk was reticent to go in depth when he mentioned it to me this morning.”

He grabs your abandoned chair after a glance, where you make no move to return to your seat. It’s almost irritating when Rox--Ms Lalonde casually slides into the one you’d offered her earlier with little hesitation, right across from Dan.

There are other chairs still, of course there are, there was enough for each kid to sit at the table, plus one extra since most sets apparently come in four-- _there’s a kid missing--_ but you don’t take it. The adrenaline still clings to you, to your heart, and you lean back against the kitchen counter, feet away, half turned away from them both, but still close enough to be considered part of the discussion.

“It’s a personal matter, Mr. Egbert, as you’ve likely surmised,” Roxanne responded through a practiced smile, shedding some of the raw sincerity that anger had dredged out from under that happy high society smile. You snort at the understatement, grabbing her attention which brings out the faintest of pursed lips. Personal…

And The Game. He can’t have heard that part or he’d be asking questions. 

Dan wasn’t a player. If he was anything like Jane’s Father, even if he made it to the medium, he wouldn’t have the benefit of whatever foreknowledge had been given to the guardians as their marching orders, or whatever shit Rox had been talking about earlier. Foreknowledge, and a visit from Jake Eng--Harley twelve long years ago.

Harley; not English. Remember that. 

Just like Roxanne was not--not Roxy.

Jane would have still been alive then, wouldn’t she? John was only 9. She died on his birthday.

“What I would like to know, is the extent to which this was planned. I would have liked to have been made aware of the other parents, just so I could have made an informed decision, u feel?”

“One word, Rox.” You remind her, earning a glare in response and an eyeroll from her, and a sigh from Dan.

You probably make him sight too damn much.

“Dirk; Please. It is Dave’s Birthday. Do you _think_ he’d be happy with that?” It’s only argument that had made you back down from leaving before shit hit the fan. You _don’t_ think Dave would necessarily miss you. At all. But you do remember Davepeta’s words, scrawled out in green across your screen.

It’s _his_ choice. Not yours. So you stayed, and this whole thing became a clusterfuck.

“Trust me, I never intended for either of you to be blindsided by this. John was initially the one to suggest extending the invitation to your daughter, considering they’d become mutual friends. I doubt _anyone_ guessed that you two would so much as blink at each other; coming from different parts of the country as you were. The odds are infinitesimal--it’s almost impressive it happened at all.”

“Rosie knew, “Roxanne muttered, “It explains a bunch. You _both_ knew. Look, it’s not that I don’t trust u, Dan. It’s just that I was apparently the last one to get this particular memo about some 12-year strilonde reunion, and that doesn’t feel kosher at all.”

“He didn’t know, Rox.” You glance back at her, before looking back out the window, “I recognized Rose’s last name. At the airport. I wasn’t sure if you’d be coming too, considering how busy you are.”

“How would u know that, huh? U left before I ever took this name.”

“The same way you knew _mine_ and had _my address,_ ” Easy, easy there. Don’t do this. She’s angry. You’re frustrated as hell. No need to put more fucking fuel on the fire, “It’s not like I never thought about you.”

“Oh? So what happened to ‘not giving a shit’?”

_I’ll just have to make friends all over again!_

You remember the colored text snaking across the backdrop of your shades, flying alone through a field of broken stars.

You don’t even have the luxury of _remaking_ your friends; you can see it in Roxy--anne’s eyes, in the way they keep flickering to you and hardening, as if she’s reminding herself of exactly why she has every right to be mad.

You give a shit. You give too much of a shit. But the uninterested and awkward as fuck AR-colored chasm that opened up between you and Roxy in your past is nothing in comparison to whatever your splinterself did to earn a Just death by her hand.

But fuck, you can’t help but get angry.

“You’re putting words in my mouth, Rox. I never said that.”

“Ye well, maybe you _should_ be putting them there becuz at least then you’d be owning up to it!”

“Fine. You’re right. I’m the worst.” This time you don’t look away. You don’t even snap. It’s just a monotone. A deathly cold monotone. Fucking steel being dragged out of a laquer sheath you’ve never had, “I get it, okay? I regret the shit show of a past between us that mangled our relationship to the point where you can’t even _look_ at me without wanting to stab me in the heart.”

_Whatever the fuck he did, I’m sorry._

But you can’t push the words out; not when you don’t know the fucking story. You can’t apologize without being all kinds of insincere and--Roxy deserves better than that. _Why_ did Roxy have to be the fucking _void?_ Complete with blackout powers, full on god-tier powers leaking through and turning her into a dark, unknown spot to you, to the game. You could have asked Davepeta to scour the history on the timeline otherwise, even without words, some sort of physical description would tell you _something._ But you know all it would be is fuckin’ black as the depths of the furthest ring until you--Dave’s Bro left for houston.

That...might have been a little too much for you, and for her. Her eyes harden, and she stands abruptly. The slightest tremble beginning to vibrate through her shoulders. A headache builds behind your eyes. You’re tired. You’re hurt. Your scarless chest is throbbing and you resist the urge to touch it, to pull that pulsing mass of light and edges out of your chest to make _sure_ its all in one piece.

Dan is rising to his feet as well as she steps forward, a trembling hand raising in a motion that makes you _flinch._ Visibly, and _hard._

The phantom sensation of metal sliding through your flesh sends you stepping back, hard, only there is nowhere to go except into the counter which digs into your back and you stumble for a moment, hand going out to steady yourself. 

What were you _doing?_

She freezes, not taking another step, Dan has a hand on her shoulder, and is saying something, but you aren’t paying attention to that. You’re watching Roxy, at the way the frozen fury drains, leaving her paler than the icing you’d put on that cake yesterday. Fingers dig into fabric and you find your hand clutching your chest, defensively, where a mark should be but isn’t but it doesn’t really matter does it because that mark was scarred into your goddamn _brain._

Some small part of your mind wonders why it was this death, of all your others, that _gets_ you. Maybe because you stared her straight in the goddamn face as you slid down the legnth of the blade, felt her hands cling to your PJs and then push you into darkness, tears fucking falling all around like a summer squall, breaking glass showering all around.

You’d seen Dave coming, but you _wanted_ him to take the opening. It was your decision to make that sacrifice.

Roxy…

You’d been trying to _comfort_ her.

“That wasn’t real.” 

Her whisper is barely more than a breath.

Fingers clench and ball the green fabric into your fist, pulling the shirt taut around your shoulders. With effort, you straighten, and force your hands back down to your sides. You catch her dead in the eyes.

“...it was.”

“That is ENOUGH. Both of you.” A heavy, frustrated exhale, “This is not the time to continue pulling up old hurts; just as the time is not proper for _self-flagellation_ . The question posed to us is, _what should we do now?”_

“...I should go.” Rox--anne pulls away from him. Away from you. She rubs her temples with long, carefully colored and cared for nails, “I should take Rosie and go--but she’d be sad. I’ve got work. I should--just go do that. Kip on up to UW. I’ll be by to take her back to the hotel tonight--”

She looks up at you, but it’s different. The eyes aren’t softening but they look so goddamn lost. She pushes away and sweeps out of the kitchen before you could even push through the resurgence of adrenaline, Dan following at her heels. All that’s left in front of you is the swinging doors and carrying voices.

“Ms. Lalonde, I assure you--”

“No, Dan, u don’t--I’m trusting u, okay? With Rosie? It’s her birthday tomorrow too, u know. I can’t--I can’t trust Dirk, but ur’re a good guy. U’ll make sure he doesn’t do somethin’ stupid like try and indoctrinate them into a soulless little clone army or somethin--gawd I don’t know. I can’t do this.”

“I assure you, there will be no army here, and your daughter will be in good hands” You sink into one of the abandoned chairs. They are nothing but distant, carrying voices. “Here, let me have your number in case something comes up, alright?”

“Alright…”

The door closes and a distant car engine revs, and she’s gone.

You just turn the chair and let yourself slump onto a barespot in the table, head pillowed in the blissful darkness of your arms. Your pulse pounds in your ears, your heart torn between tearing itself to tiny pieces and bursting its way out of your chest.

You…

Fuck.

Wood creaks; you can even hear the metal hinges as they are pushed open. A heavy hand settles on your back, “This is a problem you both will have to settle one day, but neither of you have the capacity for it right now. This is probably for the best.”

“I know.” You breath out into your arms, well away that it’d come out a near inaudible mumble to him, “I shoulda been the one to leave.”

“No.” He doesn’t elaborate, and you just sigh. “I’ll give you until the cookies finish baking, and we’ll call the children down for lunch. Is that okay?”

You don’t know; but you nod a miserable little nod anyway. You just want to escape and curl up by the fire with your phone in hand and talk to Davepeta.

Dan is separating out the cookies onto a baking sheet when you finally leave the room, although you don’t return to the comfort of the fire. It’s too exposed. It’d be too easy for the children--Dave--to just wander down and see you. The office has that damn wall-sized clown mural, but you find that corner near the piano and it’ll be good enough.

Davepeta is waiting for you when you tug the half-dead phone out of your sylladex. 

Your dreamself probably sold you out.

That emotionally transparent bastard.

dataJammer [DJ]: B33< sounds like you n33d to talk right meow huh  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< are you okay???

You haven’t been okay in a long time.

You need to be okay.

In for 4. 

Hold. 

Out for 7.

timaeusTestified [TT]: No.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: No I’m not okay.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< do you wanna talk about it???  
timaeusTestified [TT]: No.  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I just need a friend right now.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< i can do that bro  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< you always got a friend in me  
timaeusTestified [TT]: I know.

The phantom feeling of claws in your hair. Hesitant. But you lean against the wall. Into them. For a moment the room goes quiet, fading, and you can feel the warmth and presence and _comfort_ you never got to experience _._

timaeusTestified [TT]: You should be here.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< nah man its shortys show  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< dont wanna steal his thunder  
timaeusTestified [TT]: Not for the party; though you should totally see your friends.   
timaeusTestified [TT]: I want you here.  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< well with an invitation like that  
dataJammer [DJ]: B33< how could i pawssibly refuse B33c

# Dave > Race!

3

2

1

_Start._

You mash the hell outta that button and you’re off, zooming down the track with a big ol’ wa hoo, even if you picked the opposite of the titular mustashio’d plumbers. You hit the Z button to make your royal duo perform a celebratory double-swap for your Nth successful double dash and early game lead because, let’s face it, you left the rest of the competitors in the _dust._ Your impeccable timing and rad drifts has your peach icon far, far ahead of the rest of the pack, and besides, you can hear John groan, tossing the controller onto the ground. “First time playing, my ass! You’ve gotten the starting boost every single race! No way it’s your first time playing!”

There’s a smirk dancing on your lips as you casually meander your way around the curve in the track, listening to the rattattata noise of your 3D cart against the paved stone of the plaza, “It ain’t cheatin’ when you’ve got reflexes fine-tuned from the insanity that is Mad Snackz Yo. If you wanna find the _best_ glitches you need frame-perfect maneuvers. Next to that, hittin’ buttons on the count of Go is so easy I could do it blindfolded.”

Of course it helps that you’re just really good at timing shit. John just scowls at you, “That game series is recursive franchise garbage at this point and you know it.”

“How could you _say_ that? It wins Top Bro Choice of the year, every year, since it hit the scenes. Bro Gramer Magazine is never wrong!”

“Bro Gamer Magazine is also trash.”

“One man’s trash is another bro’s Mona Lisa, dude. It’s a hundred times cooler than your mainstream nintenbabies,” Oops your thumb slipped off the acceleration button and your bitchin’ flower topped cart is coasting to a stop. Not that it matters, you’d already lapped John’s cart and it’s very confused green dino and ghost combo a couple minutes ago and you don’t really care about winning the actual race. As long as you’re in 10th and he’s in 11th you’re totally dope. You just let the controller drop into your lap and stab the air violently with one hand toward the TV across the room, “Like, see this shit? Sure it’s got top-notch graphics and it’s polished to be so sharp you can see your reflection in the spit--but the charm of Mad Snacks _is_ how bad it is, dude! You can’t clip yourself through a half-pipe and send yourself rocketing through the air to get the big ol’ golden dorito in the sky it just ain’t the same dawg.”

“You can’t do that because they actually _built_ it right Dave! Besides, there _is_ clipping in Mario Kart, people use it for speedruns. I’d say exploiting bugs are _more_ interesting when the developers actually gave a shit and tried to stomp them out! It means people have to try harder--”

“It’s a _feature_ John, not a bug--”

“This debate has a flavor to it, aged like the wine gifted to a golden years couple decades ago on their wedding day, “Rose interrupts the thesis you were mentally preparing to drop on your bud like it was a 100 megaton bomb of fuckin’ _schooling,_ and it completely harshes your vibe. You just give her your best unimpressed face--and you have a _lot_ of practice with the unimpressed face, considering how _done_ you are with idiots online even if they can never ever behold it--while glancing over your shoulder to where she sat towering above you both, being on the couch instead of on the floor like you dirty plebs, a plate of half-eaten cookies balanced on her knees.

“You could just ask to play, you know,” John picks up his abandoned controller and waves it in her direction, accidentally bumping the accelerator button and sending his poor last place kart lurching forward a couple meters. You’re still ahead though, and really? That’s all that matters. “We _have_ two more controllers. Dad got a whole set even though I told him we only needed three.”

“Yeah Rose, join us, there’s no need to sit up on high, waving that image around like it’s a bit ol’ magic--” The pause after that is so pregnant it’s about to _pop,_ and you let it hang around long enough for it to register in John’s brain. That panicky and squaked “DAVE” is music in your ears, “--wand. What did you think I was gonna say, John? Really, you need to scrub out your brain. What would your dad think?”

“He’d think you’re a terrible influence, because you _know_ what you were going to say! You cut it off there on purpose!”

Your superstar smile just makes him fume harder, and it’s the _best._ He’s turning cherry-fucking red and trying not to smile back and you got him so bad it ain’t funny. But it is. It’d be gut busting, keel over roflcopter worthy levels of hularity if you were prone to indulging in such things.

Rose just sniffs, “As if I’d wish to place myself within range of your metaphorical pigtail tugging contest. I’m quite content with dinner and a show.” She selects another one of the cookies and breaks it in half before nibbling daintily on it--you don’t actually know what kind it is. Egbert Senior brought out chocolate chip earlier, and this one looks. Lumpier than the chocolate chip ones for sure. You lean back against the couch and swipe the other half she left behind on the pile and stuff that shit into your mouth.

Fuck yeah you _like_ this one.

You try to grab another but Rose shifts the plate out of your reach with a small smirk dancing on her-- _unpainted, but that’s kind of strange isn’t it?--_ lips. “Aw c’mon Rose, just one?”

“You had one.”

“That was a half!”

“What’ll your brother say if you don’t have room for cake?”

God she sounds so sacchirinely innocent as she reminds you of how fuckin’ awkward that was; as if she doesn’t know that even _mentioning_ that awkward attempt at parenting wouldn’t send your face falling into your hands like someone had just thrown you into a fuckin’ gravity chamber and flipped that shit to x100 earths. Crash, bang, buried into the _ground._ “Ugh, Rose, please don’t; I’d managed to forget that.”

“I don’t see why you’d need to. I thought it was rather touching.”

‘That’s the thing Rose, it ain’t touching when it’s hella _weird_ ! Weird touching is bad touching! Weird touching gives you the heebie jeebies instead of the fuzzy wuzzies. Now you’re trying to distract me and it isn’t working! You don’t need _all_ the cookies. You should share.”

“Mr. Egbert gave them to me--”

“Because you were the only one with free hands!”

“--and, therefore, I am the keeper of the cookies. And as the Keeper, I’ve determined that you have not yet earned an additional morself. Especially not these delightful oatmeal raisin ones. I really must give my compliments to your Father, John. I feel like I could eat my weight in these and feel nary a regret.”

“I’m glad someone likes them,” You’ve only known the dude’s voice for a day, and you can already tell he’s making a face at that, “Thank _god_ for your bro, Dave; if it was just us here and Dad got into one of these moods, he would have dragged _me_ into helping him.”

You’re about to sputter something because why would anyone be _glad_ to have Bro’s lurking gargoyle self hanging around, but Rose takes the reigns for a bit and you find you’re kinda okay with that. You remove your face from it’s hand shaped prison and just regard your friends, letting you weird indignation settle into the background at her innocent question, “Do you not enjoy it?”

“God, no.” The exasperated sigh startles you. He glances toward the kitchen, but you can’t see either of the parenta--John’s Dad and your Bro. The estranged Mom left, remember? Anyway, John lowers his volume just in case regardless, and that gets you interested. He hasn’t really seemed all that worried about it before, aside from the cussing, and even that’s lapsed over the last few hours. “I _hate_ baking. And I always feel like I’ve kicked a puppy or something whenever I say no. It totally sucks because then I get suckered into helping out and we end up with twelve dozen cookies or something ridiculous like that. If your Bro wants to take that target off my back I’m gonna thank him for it!”

“Nice to know you’ll toss my bro under the bus of fatherly affection to save yourself, dude. Real cool of you.”

Okay, that came out more bitter than you intended. What the fuck, Dave? Do you really care if your Bro has spent nearly all day in the service of John’s dad running ingredients or looming uncomfortably or whatever he does when he doesn’t have his computer to do his usual shit with? 

Evidently.

John just settles on rolling his eyes at you, “It keeps them out of our hair; what more do you want?”

“I didn’t say nuthin’ about hair.”

“Did so. You were sooo against leaving my room earlier. Why else would that be other than to avoid--”

“Gawd John, that was because of the impending eruption of Mt. St. Mom right there--no offense Rose.” 

“None taken.”

“--and then afterwards, well, I dunno about you, but the atmosphere had barely _thawed_ when your Dad called us down for lunch, and Bro just--you saw him right? I’m not the only one who thought he was gonna loom so hard he turned himself into an honest to god drainspout--”

Your only warning is a flash of his glasses and a shifting of his stance to one that put his feet beneath him, and you realize what he’s about to do. You captchalogue your shades. John lunges. Small fingers darting and poking and searching for chinks in your fuckin’ seemless defense. You can barely hold him upright as his weight crashes into you, but to the backdrop of Rose’s unapologetic laughter, you _both_ hit the floor. Carpet fiber scrape up against exposed skin, you’ll be happy if you don’t end up with rug burn, christ John, but you manage to get _some leverage_ and throw your weight, squirming out from his total control and turning this thing into a full on Youthful Tussle.

It only lasts for a couple minutes before you manage to push yourself away from John’s dumb wheezing face. He lets you--and you’re _aware_ he lets you. Goddamn kid has a grip like a goddamn vice. The only thing you have going for you is your flexibility and your situational awareness--and you try in vain to get your hair back into something resembling your Look. It’s hard without a mirror, or a brush that’s anything better than your hastily patting hand and probably oily fingers but maybe your Bro is fine with rooster hair, but it ain't just you two dancing around each other.

“Dang it John, I know I’m hella good looking, but you don’t need to keep jumpin’ my bones. Not every single smoldering glance needs to turn into a rough and rowdy scrum. I’m a delicate flower, I’m not made for this shit.”

He just snorts at makes a swipe at you. Which you don’t even have to dodge because he’s too lazy to move any closer. “Delicate my ass. You were the one who had me in a headlock yesterday.”

“That was _yesterday.”_ It’s different. “I’d been cooped up in a plane, and then a car all day. You try and feel your muscles atrophy and _then_ try and turn down some good ol’ physical activity.”

“If I may, I can’t help but notice a particular flavor in your interactions. A spice if you will. We’re a tad young, but could it be that John is dipping a toe delicately into the domain of blackrom?”

“Ugh, hell no, getta outta here with that shit.” The mere mention of that term makes your stomach clench painfully, even if you can’t quite figure out where you’ve heard it from before. Maybe it was something Rose mentioned; it sounds vaguely literary, and she likes to dig up themes and jargon that you’ve only peripherally heard of before. “It’s just some totally no bromo boys will be boys action. Right, John?”

You wait for his enthusiastic affirmative, but it doesn’t come, so you give a careful peek in his direction.

He’s frozen. A pit forms in your gut

“...John?”

“It’s just…” It’s breathy, voice hitching, as if coming outta some sort of a weird trance or day-dream or--fuck if you know, but his eyes were distant and your prompting had them focusing on you, and his expressive face seizes in the middle of an expression that you aren’t sure you’d ever seen before. Just…

Lost. 

“You’re here. And you won’t shut up. I can reach out and pinch you or tickle you or…”

You aren’t breathing.

“You’re just _here,_ you know?” And then he lights up. Positively glowing. 

You smile, a genuine one this time, and flick him between the lenses of his askew glasses, since he’d clearly decided against captchalogue them like you did. “Yeah, I know. It’s awesome isn’t it?”

Rose, having watched that whole thing, clears her throat. A queen waiting for silence of the masses to allow her to speak. It breaks the Moment, and you aren’t amused as you give her a “what the hell” look and she has this smug little look on her face that makes you wonder if she’d just gotten outta the closet with--

“Alright. You earned it with that display. I’ll allow you to have a cookie. "

What the. Oh. Right.

"... Rose, the plate is empty". 

"Indeed. I’m sure John’s father would be glad to refill it post-haste if you asked. Surely you would prefer a fresh baked cookie rather than the crumbs that remain?" 

“...Rose, there was more than _crumbs_ a second ago.”

She just sniffs and gives you a mild, completely unruffled look, and you sigh. Loudly. Raising your voice against John’s muffled snicker, you take the plate with its innocent pile of baked detris scattered across the polished surface. There’d been _at least_ three cookies left when you swiped that half, _right?_ “Okay fine. I’ll be the errand boy. On my _birthday._ There’s some law against this I’m sure.”

Your lack of shades makes your pointed glance in John’s direction unmistakable, skewering him under a manufactured weight of societal and bro-ship obligations. He visibly blanches, eyes widening for a brief moment before shaking his head and hands wildly, “Oh hell no I’m not going in here. Near my dad??? When he’s baking??? That’s like asking for me to get kidnapped and never heard from again!”

 _God_ _finally something makes_ **sense.** John was just too fucking cool with his Dad most of the time. It, strangely, makes you feel a little bit better. As if some bitter twist buried deep in the mire of shit you don’t wanna acknowledge just eased a little. 

Between this and Rose’s...mom… Well; at least you aren’t alone in wanting to avoid your parenta--authority--guardian-- _Bro_ . Even if John teases you about it and you’re pretty sure this whole cookie run shit is a ploy by Rose to get you within three feet of the dude. You haven’t seen him since ya’ll absconded from the kitchen after lunch because that shit was still hangin’ in the air like a powerful fart and John just _had_ to finally get in his mario kart, especially once his Dad so much as _mentioned_ the word _cookies._

You might have seen flash-steps faster than that, but it’d still been a damn good effort.

With an--overly exaggerated--sigh, you drop your shades out of your ‘dex and into your hand, sliding that comforting dark overlay over the normal lighting of casa del Egbert. “Fine, whatever. In payment, I demand you avenge me in the next Kart race, Rose. Kick John’s Ass.”

“Hey!”

Rose doesn’t do something so unsightly as _snort,_ but...well, the sentiment remains. She rolls her eyes and slides down off the couch, settling herself in the spot you’d just recently vacated. Satisfied you at least get some measure of revenge, even if it ultimately means nothing because it’s just a video game that you don’t actually care about, you take your mockingly empty platter toward the barrier between the candyland and...whatever exists outside candyland. Meatland? Veggieland? _Cookieland?_

They are definitely still baking. Cookie baking has a very distinctive smell that’s been permeating the house all afternoon. It’s so mundane at this point you’ve started unconsciously ignoring it, but here near the door it’s much stronger.

On the other side was John’s Dad. And Bro. Unless Bro fucked off somewhere, but you aren’t at home there’s no roof for him to fuck off to. Or there is, but like you’d seen that shit from the car. It’s hella steep, and you’d have to be a literal monkey to get up there, much less find the proper footing for a strife. 

...he probably would have considered it a challenge, once upon a time.

You...aren’t prepared for the controlled _chaos_ that erupts around you as you step through the wooden saloon style doors. It isn’t... _messy_ really. Just bowls and metal sheets and cooling racks littering nearly every available surface. You can feel your eyes all but bulging their way outta you head, rolling along the floor at the sheer number of fucking _cookies_ spread about the place. Some are laid out flat, obviously cooling, but even others are stacked up on fuckin’ _piles_.

There’s no way in hell you guys are going to _eat all this_. Not even Rose’s apparent black hole of a cookie-pit would be able to hoover up a cookiepocalypse of this magnitude. 

“Don’t worry, I’ll be sending some home with you all.” Oh had you said that aloud? Mr. E was looking up from a bowl he’d been mixing. You don’t see your brother, but you know he’s here, that prickle on your neck was tingling. “This is nothing compared to Jane when she got into one of her moods.”

“Did you bake together?” _Oh_ there he is. He’s hunched over a cookie sheet in the back near the oven, spooning out some dough into perfectly sized dollops to go in the next batch you guess. 

“Of course! She loved to help me. It was stress relieving for her, I think, much how you describe your tinkering habits.”

“Mmm. It would be. Regular motions with a predictable process and a satisfying outcome.”

He barely glances your way which is weird. And his tone is conversational which is even _weirder_. What the fuck.

“Indeed. I’m not sure whether I got the habit from her, or she learned it from me, but I remember many a day when we’d fill up several plastic tubs and take them down to the local elementary library. The kids would get excited over ‘real betty crocker’ cookies.”

“Isn’t that a brand??” It sounded familiar. In that faint, you’ve probably seen an advertisement for it somewhere, way that you never really cared about because you’d never buy it. Bro stiffened, you saw him straighten up out of the corner of your eye, but Dan didn’t given it so much as a backwards glance, still with that same small smile.

Also, who the hell is Jane? John’s mom??

“Betty Crocker’s Box Cake Mixes! Although The name belongs on far too many products for me to bother with nowadays. Many of Jane’s recipes began with Grandmother’s old formulas, although she was never satisfied with cake mixes and always ended up branching off--oh you aren’t here for family history, are you Dave? Did you three want more cookies? What kinds?”

...Woah, Mr. E seemed much more at ease when behind the uh, mixer as it were. Damn, maybe there’s something to that whole baking-as-a-method of relaxing thing. Why would John be so...weird about this? This is uh, downright pleasant in comparison to you and your Bro’s uh…

Stop it. Don’t think about that. Think about the fact that Bro’s got something stuck to his face and on his shirt again, although you can guess that it’s sugar or flour at this point. Were they baking yesterday _too?_ “Uh. I guess so yeah? I dunno,” What did Rose say the last ones were? “...the raisin ones?”

“You do seem to enjoy the fruit flavorings don’t you?” Oh god your face is heating up, isn’t it. Fuck. Apple. Strawberry. Raisin. Aren’t raisins just dried grapes?? Maybe you _do_ prefer fruit??? It’s not like you’d thought about it before. At all. “--Dirk, you made the last batch didn’t you? Could you get them together while I work on this?”

Bro mirrors your deer in the headlights imitation, vanishing with a half-step you can barely follow until he lands in front of a set of lumpy cookies sitting on a wire. Wordlessly he holds a hand out for your plate and you walk it over; you can feel the heat emanating from the rack. Fresh outta the goddamn oven. 

Mr. Egbert said _made_ not helped. 

You can barely see over the counter, but you focus on your bro’s hands, darting quickly to lightly hover over each cookie before snatching it up and adding it to the plate if it’s...you don’t know? Cooled sufficiently? 

Did those hands, the ones that looked so natural and comfortably around a hilt, permanently marked with callouses from sword work, actually make something so domestically uncool as _cookies?_

As the pile on the plate grew taller, you find yourself glancing up under the anonymity of your shades-- _bro’s shades--_ and trace the smear of flour across his nose. You can feel Rose’s eyes on your back from the other room, although that’s stupid. You weren’t right in front of the door or anything. But you can still see her purple-text in the back of your mind pushing you to _talk_. “Did you really make these?”

She probably would have facepalmed at that lame, completely inconsequential question, but hey. You’re workin’ with what you got here.

He falters, and then nods. A slight, very slight incline of the head, “Yeah. John’s Dad’s been teaching me.”

“Cool.”

You uncomfortably lapse back into silence, somehow despite your mental groping whatever switch triggers your ramble reflex is like suspiciously absent right now. It’s almost like there’s something very specific building behind your frosted windpipe and it’ll only break if you actually you know.

Fuckin’ talk about it you weenie.

“What’s the deal with Rose’s mom?”

He freezes completely and you flounder.

The silence stretches on; your heartbeat pounding in your ears. It’s so loud, you can’t hear the music from the game. You can’t hear the distant but incomprehensible murmurs of your friends. You can’t even hear the rhythmic beating of a wooden spoon against a bowl. You chew on the inside of your cheek. There’s nothing but you and Bro and your pounding heart and the roar of blood rushing to your face. 

The ticking. 

You can’t even find the ticking. 

So you start counting.

Even if you can’t feel the pulsing beat right now, you’ve been listening to it nonstop for months, it’s easy to fall into the pattern.

22, 23, 24, 25, 26…

Exhale.

“Look, it’s okay, alright? Rose just--she thinks--you two obviously knew each other, and John made this ridiculous analogy to the Parent Trap. It’s obviously not true, because that would be insane, but like, it’s made me curious okay? If we aren’t some long-lost twinsies and ya’ll aren’t estranged lovers--” He lets out a strangled sound despite the fact that his expression hasn’t so much as cracked and your brain screeches to a halt, “wait--it _is_ ridiculous right?? What was that supposed to mean Bro??? You aren’t fuc--messing with me are you???”

“I--no. No, it’s nothing like that. You’re way too young, for one. This is the first time we’ve met since I was sixteen.”

“Okay cool. No sis then.” Really, your reaction is more like, thank _god._ Cool as it would be to have a sister, and Rose is like strangely _exactly_ what you’d think of if you had to have a sister, let’s be real, the thought of it _actually_ being a parent trap situation terrifies you. Bro is _not_ a parental. At all. Definitely not. You both have parents out there somewhere. Or did. That’s it. 

Still, that reaction had to mean _something,_ and the other option wasn’t quite as mortifying. Embarrassing, yes, to think about your Bro being interesting in doing the nasty even just for fun, but hey, it didn’t involve kids. “Estranged lovers then? Childhood sweethearts? Did you take a stroll down to the 7/11 to buy cigarettes and vanish from her life?” 

That was a romantic trope right? Oh god even if it isn’t the parent trap you’ll die if your life turns out to be some other dumb rom-com that John can probably pull outta the back of his brain even if they aren’t like his prefferred genre.

Bro exhales, it’s pretty deep for him. You count to seven before he moves again, setting the mostly-filled plate down on the counter in a small space between two wire cooling racks full of cookies, “No. We… just grew up together. That’s all.”

“Idunno bro, there was some goddamn tension in the chilis tonight. So much so I’m gonna go out on a limb and claim you’re two steps away from getting your hate mack on. There’s more that there story.”

Oh god what are you _doing._

Bro seems to agree with you. Any satisfaction that blossomed (and bloom that motherfuckin’ flower did, like a goddamn wide-faced sunflower) at the fact that you cracked his stoicism enough to give you the impression that he swallowed a lemon, was quickly overwhelmed by the alarm blare that is the heat building in your face. You hope to jegus that Mr. E didn’t hear any of THAT, but you can’t quite bring yourself to look. 

“ _No._ Dave. Just--no. She’s--just Roxy. Just an old friend. We had a falling out and there are some wounds time won’t heal.”

He--

Wow. That last bit sounds--

Sad.

Shit.

“Is she gonna come back?”

The question seems to snap him out of whatever the fuck that was, and you can even see a twitch of a frown, “She wouldn’t leave Rose. Don’t worry.”

“That’s not a yes, Bro.”

“It’s not a no, either.” An exhale that might be a sigh. You aren’t sure, “I really don’t know, Dave. Dan told her when dinner would be. It’s her decision if she’s gonna work or come back.”

He shakes his head, and starts reaching for the cookies again.

“That’s enough.” You blurt out. He pauses, those embers boring into you again. You clarify, “The cookies. That’s enough cookies. Don’t wanna ruin dinner right? Didn’t you promise me cake later?”

That breaks the weird moment well enough, you suppose, when he just snorts out a laugh, and for a moment you’re struck by that weird duality again, like someone had plucked some of the downright pleasant moments from your life and stitched them together to make something so familiar feel so bizarrely alien. It pushes right up against that moment with Rose earlier too, giving fuel to that nagging voice in your brain that said, you know, that quiet laugh sounds pretty familiar. Good thing you already had proof for that particular pudding and the verdict is Hell Naw. 

“I did, didn’t I? I made that one too.”

“What really? Goddamn Bro, don’t tell me Mr. E’s successfully persuaded you to join his baking cult. I like cookies, but not…” You give the kitchen and it’s dozens upon dozens of cookies, in a few different flavors, a quick sweep. To your surprise--or maybe not, the dude _was_ a gentleman--John’s dad is nowhere to be seen. “Not this much. There’s no way we’d be able to smuggle this into our shitty carry ons.”

“I can’t imagine they’d survive the transport without proper packaging. You didn’t see how carelessly people shoved that shit in the overhead bins.”

“Bet I saw more’n you, Bro, with the way you immediately folded yourself into that window seat. The aisle was my _kingdom_ for a while. Too bad all the people in the swanky seats with us were hella boring. Guess the upside of not contributing to the sardine count outweighs the snooty boring company.”

Bro doesn’t listen to you throughout this. About the cookies, you mean, he’s clearly listening to your ramble for some godforsaken reason you can’t decipher considering the agreement he throws out to validate your final statement.

He’s been adding to and shuffling around in order to even out the pile while you talk, and really you don’t mind? It wasn’t even really about the cookies. If Bro won’t relinquish the plate until it passes some sort of internal perfectness measure, you aren’t gonna complain. You sure as hell don’t know what he’s doing, but it doesn’t look quite so lopsided once he finishes fussing with it. 

“Bro?”

He doesn’t say anything, but _does_ acknowledge the interrogative with a flick of his eyes and a slight change in the direction of his head, which is something, you guess.

“You uh, got something like, right here.” You wipe your thumb across the bridge of your nose. His eyebrows almost get swallowed by the sadly, somewhat normal rooster comb he’s been sporting lately, and he mimics your motion, only succeeding in smearing it further. “Uh… I don’t wanna say you missed, but...”

The sigh is quiet, just a quick exhale, “It’s fine. I’ll get it before dinner. At least flour won’t poison you.”

Poison?? “What the fuck have you been getting on your face that poison is even in the running of things to worry about??”

He shrugs one of those shrugs that’s really just a slight rotation of a shoulder; just straight up outright dismissing the weirdness of the statement, “I’m more careful with that shit, don’t worry about it. Here.” 

The plate is warm from the still warm cookies resting upon it when he presses it into your hands. Your fingers brush his as they automatically, and without thinking, reach to find a stable grip. It’s just a second of contact that has your _mostly_ relaxed hackles prickling. You shove it _down_ hard _._ Ugh. You hate this.

You hate this so much.

Why can _John_ oh so happily hug this man without so much of a thought but you can’t even so much as _touch_ him until you’re--

_“It’s too bad you don’t sleep.”_

_“...yeah. S’too bad.”_

_You could feel your eyelids drooping, even as time begins to slow, stretching out, expanding, as you fade from one world and land in the next. You can almost feel the way he dissolves into the painful loneliness._

_“Don’t leave…”_

_Please._

_You don’t want to go back there alone._

_You find his hand and cling like a fucking baby, but you don’t care, because here there be dragons. Big green n red dragons lurking in the corners waiting for you._

_But even that slips away, and you…_

“Don’t eat them all at once, okay? Dinner’ll be in a few hours.”

“Maybe you shoulda thought about that before giving me this many cookies bro, now that I got them I’ll be shovin’ em so hard down my gullet they won’t last more than a few minutes. You don’t understand how fast Rose devoured the last ones Bro, it was like, one minute there were five, and she was doing the whole ‘I’ma refined lady’ thing and nibbling daintily, and then BAM empty, as soon as I look back. She’s a cookie monster, Bro, a real life cookie monster.”

“I don’t know, she doesn’t look very blue to me.”

“Of _course_ you’d know sesame street, what was I thinkin’. My mistake for thinkin’ I’d pull a fast reference over your head”

You let the rolling waves carry you away, and just shy away from the memory, letting it sink back down into the depths of nah thanks bro, not really feelin’ up to unpacking that right now. Away and out of your brain because it’s just like you’ve got enough on your plate okay, like these cookies. These cookies you really need to get back to Rose and John. It’s a surprise they haven’t come after you at this point considering John’s worry for his own kiddnappability in the domain of the baking cult. “So uh, yeah, thanks for the cookies. I probably should get these back to my friends. Sorry for distracting you from your uh, Dad-appointed tasks. Especially with weird probably personal questions I maybe shouldn’t be askin’ because you know, it ain’t my business but curiosity, and cats, ect. Sometimes I just gotta channel my inner feline ya’know?”

He does that weird muffled snort laugh again, “It’s fine, Dave. It just caught me off guard. I should have expected an interrogation sooner or later.”

“Yeah well, gotta jet I guess. Purromise I’ll leave room for your cake, pinky swear.”

And then you’re gone. Actually gone. Flash-stepping outta the kitchen and back into the living room bearing your prize only to freeze because--

There’s a whole ‘nother plate sitting on the floor between Rose and John as they battle to the _death_ trying to knock these stupid little balloons free from the backs of their carts, going round and round this huge donut. 

“Oi! What’s with that??? You send me away for cookies and you already have some??? What gives?”

“You took too long, Dave. Mr. Egbert delivered them ten minutes ago.” Rose doesn’t even look up at you, strangely focused on piloting her hulking spikey drag--turtle? Piloting this tiny cart that looks hella too small for him, with a sneering purple clothed skinny dude dropping a banana behind them as they went. A banana that poor John’s dinosaur ran into at just that second and sent him spinning out with an audibly pathetic awayayayaya, sending the last of his balloons floating to the sky. 

“Ugh dammit Rose not again! Best 5 outta seven!”

“Of course, John dear. Whatever you like.” She pats him lightly on the shoulder as he sulks, stabbing at the buttons to replay the match while choosing a new course. 

Whelp. Now it was your turn to steal her spot in the place of honor on the couch, strangely content to let the John and Rose Show have it’s airtime while you shoved Bro’s cookies into your mouth. Who is the birthday boy? It is _you_ . And these are _your_ fucking cookies, _Rose._

You smack her encroaching fingers away to the backdrop of John demanding yet _another_ rematch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHELP. Hope it was worth the wait! This is the result of almost 2 weeks of work LOL
> 
> ...and yes. It's IS tuesday. I waited until tuesday. I DIDN'T BREAK THE RULES!
> 
> EDIT!: Also thanks to [Peonies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peonies/pseuds/peonies) for the code to make Davepeta's colors all fancy! and [deserts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deserts/pseuds/deserts) for the modified homestuck work skin :3c. Ya'll allowed me to do some fun stuff a couple chapters back...
> 
> Edit Edit: Reverted the change due to compatibility issues with IOS mobile safari. Looking in to fixes but at least this way it's readable for the moment :(


	57. [I1P8] The Lost Art of Communication

#  Dirk > Fret

The sun has set. 

Dinner has been eaten. It was a veritable fresh-made feast ranging from home-made mac n’ cheese to chicken-pineapple-skewers. Dan definitely has Dave pegged with the fruit angle, and Dave knows it, considering the grumbles you heard emanating from the kid’s table while you and Dan took your dinner at the counter. 

A delicious dinner. And you will be badgering Dan about the recipe and methods before you leave, and write it down because you aren’t sure you can trust your shitty memory right now. At least not until you can reconnec--sleep. Dump all the junk data clogging all the pipelines and properly clean that shit out.

But…

“Still no word from Rox-anne?” The extra syllable trips you up, damn it. 

It still hurts.

It’s barely even past 6 and it’s been dark out for a while. Roxanne knew about dinner. She said she would be back to pick up Rose after work.

Where is she?

Dan glances over your shoulder, probably toward the kids back at the actual table. They should be digging into the cake now, and a strangely proud warmth trickles through the otherwise awful malaise resting on your shoulders like a cape. Dave had taken one look at the four cakes produced from the depths of the kitchen, then at you, and raised an eyebrow.

_ Which one? _

He’d taken a huge slice from the one you faintly indicated towards; even if the icing wasn’t exactly even, and you’d probably made the inner layers too thin with the wrong proportion of strawberry to whipped cream--

Stop it. You shake your head, getting yourself caught in the nitpicky spiral even as you recall the instance. The point is: he  _ did _ go for it. Knowing it was yours, and that is  _ worth something, _ damn it.

You cup that warmth protectively in your core, attempting to shelter it against the smothering oppressive hurt and dread that keeps dragging your mind back towards Roxanne.

You’d told her you would leave. She clearly doesn’t want anything to do with you. She has more experience, replicated or otherwise, with this whole ‘adult’ schtick than you did. Do. Will ever have. 

She doesn’t need you. Roxy never needed you, to be honest. 

But  _ fuck it _ , you’re still worried about her.

“I did try calling shortly before dinner,” Dan explains at length, clearly having debated whether or not he wanted to talk about the subject at all. That whole incident has been a lingering like a particularly persistent odor. “But she didn’t respond. I can only assume she’s wrapped up with whatever business brought her to Washington in the first place.”

You lean against the counter, listening to the murmur of voices from across the room. The taste of blood lingers in your mouth, despite the half-eaten sugary sweet confection lying dejected on a plate near your elbow. “Did she say what it was?”

“Perhaps it is best to let things be. I will let her know that Rose is welcome to stay here for the night if necessary.”

If that wasn’t a politely worded ‘fuck off’, then you’ll eat your hat. All of the hats still stashed in the crawlspace, in fact. Dan likely doesn’t mean it that way, but it’s exactly what you’ve been trying to tell yourself to no avail.

You know what  _ your _ Roxy would have done, once upon a time, and you aren’t sure you can trust this one to not fall into the same pit. 

Going to work was  _ your _ coping mechanism. Not hers.

Her tower had been full of bottles. 

It’s not like there’s anything you can do. You don’t have her cellphone number, and Dan already tried. So you busy yourself in the act of cleaning up the remnants of the meal and subsequent dessert-fest.  

Once the kids finish eating, they predictably herd themselves off to the living room again. Voices filter through the open archway and the wall, but they are far enough away that you can relegate it to background noise and not feel like you’re eavesdropping. It’s their time. Their night. They should enjoy it. Dan starts packing the leftover macaroni and cheese and chicken into containers, shifting them from there into the refrigerator. You gather the abandoned dishes and silverware to be helpful, using the mechanical task to try and get your mind  _ off _ Roxanne--

Quiet. Metal on metal. Not quite a squeak, but a hinge that might need oiling soon. You unconsciously reach for a strife deck that isn’t there, despite the fact that your hands are full of fragile dishware that would shatter into hundreds of sharp shards if you flung your hand out to draw your bladekind.

\-- _ you’ll need to thank Newt for that, Christ, if you hurt any of these kids-- _

“Mr. Strider?” 

There’s a pint-sized girl in a black blouse lingering by the door. 

Where the hell did she come from? And why hadn’t you heard her?

_ Rose Lalonde had the mysterious ability to black out cameras. _

Paradoxical progression. Roxanne had killed you with void powers. You have some measure of Heart bullshit even in this meat suit. You wouldn’t be surprised if the kids retain something too. Dave might not have shown any signs of anything, not even the identity issues Davepeta swears he’s dealing with, but it’s not like he has any inclination to _talk_ _to you about it_ if he is. 

Rose is waiting for your acknowledgement, idiot. Say something.

It’s sounds hollow, toothless, but your internalized self-loathing does the job. “What’s up?”

That doesn’t sound too stilted at least. Dirtied utensils clink and shift as you place the carefully arranged stack of dishes on the table. You still need to collect the glasses…

“Am I wrong in the assumption that your prior experience with my mother extends to her… vices?”

You don’t say anything, but it’s clear the little seer in training-- _ Rosie knew-- _ can read the answer from your careful nonresponse. She sucks in a small breath, and  _ plucks _ a small cellphone from the air. It’s a fairly new model, not a flip phone, but one closer to that of a PDA. She navigates the menus and pulls up a string of texts, wordlessly holding it out to you.

You take it. Given the opening salvo your heart sinks like a stone.

Typos galore. Right in your hands you have a perfect run down of a sauced up Roxy babbling into her daughter’s text messages. Nothing about you, thankfully, but it’s fairly clear inbetween the random as fuck tangeants that she hasn’t been working. 

There’s a lot, but you find a series of messages at the end of the chain that you linger on.

_ im sirry rosie _

_ i kno i orimised but mummy cabt drive rn _

_ *promised _

_ it's ok tho you can have that sleepover you wanted!  _

_ itll ve lost of fun ull see _

_ *be _

_ mommy lvoes u rosie _

_ *loves _

Glance up from the texts, locking eyes with the passive, resigned expression on the girl’s face.

You want to ask how long it’s been going on, but you can get that information from the time-stamps. If she actually tried to get some work done, it must not have lasted very long for her to have been this impaired.  “Why did you show me this?”

Her expression shifts at your soft words, glancing towards where the water is running, indicating Dan has moved on from his storage efforts. You should get these dishes to him.

You don’t, though.

Rose finally speaks, “Mother would answer my phone. I do not wish to speak to her, though.”

It isn’t hard to read between the lines. The strength of your realization has a grimace tugging against your lips. “You realize I’m the last person she’d want to hear from right now.”

“What she wants and what she needs are two very different things, Mr. Strider.”

“...don’t call me that, okay?”

A delicate eyebrow rises, vanishing into honey blonde hair. “What would you prefer I call you? Bro?”

You shrug. “I reckon we could do without direct referentials entirely. It’s not as if there’s another participant in this conversation.”

She doesn’t bite. The seconds pass; waiting for you to actually address her request and not deflect clumsily with name-based buillshit. It hangs between you two, heavy, and full of some sort of expectation. Plastic cuts into your palms, and you realize you’re squeezing her phone, so you force yourself to ease your fingers open. You set it down on the table, next to the pile of plates. 

“I’m not going to poke my nose where it’ll just get shot off. I’m sorry, Rose.”

You want to.

God you want to. 

The meddler in you even claims it’s for her own good.

“I thought we weren’t using names,  _ Mr. Strider _ ?”

You snort, but don’t deign to respond, grabbing the dishes and putting that small silver phone out of your mind. If you stay here you’ll likely make a stupid decision because even now there’s nagging, originating from that part of you that would always keep an eye on your friend’s tower, waiting for her dreamself to up and wander off into the abyss. It was your job to bring her back.

It’d been that way all your life.

Goddamn it. She doesn’t  _ want _ you. She’s better off without you.

She’s an adult. She can take care of herself.

Your worry mixes with your ingrained need to  _ fix _ shit, and you itch to snatch that phone off the table. 

Instead of giving in to those impulses, you put your back to it and start to move the dishes toward Dan and the sink. He’s humming quietly as you slide the pile of plates and utensils into place near his left elbow, but he takes the time to offer you an appreciative, “Thank you, Dirk,” before you head back to the table. 

The quiet sentiment sends a momentary warmth running through you, though you don’t think it’s quite enough to show on your face as any sort of pigment change. It’s merely. Nice? To be acknowledged. Especially from someone you’re starting to admire.

‘Starting to’,  _ hah. _ Stop kidding yourself.

Just go clean up, Christ.

Dishes: done. Should you pull down the balloons? Or just--leave them for now? It  _ is _ Rose’s birthday tomorrow, and while she might not care for the red balloons, the other colors are still fairly ubiquitous. Dan already plans to make her a cake--chocolate, dark as sin _ , _ apparently--once everything’s gotten cleaned up--

“Neither of us are particularly pleased with the idea of leaving her to her own devices. Particularly  _ that _ vice. Why is this so much to ask?” This girl isn’t even 10 and you’re suddenly aware of the fact that she’s  _ terrifying _ . “Wasn’t she your friend, once?”

Fucking kid won’t even let you plan her own chapter of these party shenangigans over here.

Your brain grinds to a halt; quietly horrified by the fact that you’re frustrated enough to think of her like that, without even the slightest skip to reflect on how wrong it is until several seconds later. And it _is_ wrong; knowing what you do of how fucked up everyone’s identities are, much less your own. She _should_ be your age, not half. 

And yet here you are, getting verbally pushed around by a child in body if not entirely in spirit. A child that’s currently trying to manipulate you into crossing a boundary you Do Not Want and that seems to know exactly what buttons to push. Seer privileges? Or is she simply too smart for her own good?  

“If I was her friend once, don’t you think I’d be better off  _ listening _ to her?” She’s giving you an answer. An  _ action _ . Something you can  _ do.  _

In for four.

Exhale five.

No. 

“If all you need is for someone to trick her into answering the phone, then ask John’s Dad. It’d be more effective given she’d be less likely to immediately smash the end call button on him.”

“She won’t hang up on you.”

The unwavering confidence in her voice is like hitting the rewind button on all your arguments. The resolve unraveling and starting to splinter just like your fucked up soul, echoing with all these ominous cracks. You could probably mix a beat out of it, that’s how much that shit echoes. “What makes you so sure?”

“Petunias have two meanings, you know.”

“Do they.” What the fuck do petunias have to do with anything? 

“The most commonly known meaning is simple: Anger. Resentment. Given the maintenance that you’ve been out of touch for well over a decade, I wonder what prompted it.” On Rose's face is an expression that surely must be too complicated for a nearly ten-year-old, and yet.

If Roxanne remembers stabbing you--and there's really no other way to reconcile that disbelieving "it wasn't real" otherwise--you might have an idea. 

“So what’s the second one then?”

“They can also symbolize a desire or longing to spend time with someone.” The cellphone is no longer resting against the red tablecloth, once again held between Rose’s offered hands. “Or, a yearning for a simpler time in another’s company. Interesting, is it not, what our choices unintentionally say about us?”

That twists your gut up, because fuck, if Rox missed you then surely she wouldn’t have  _ stabbed you _ . Dream or no.

“It’s just a fuckin’ flower. There’s probably a billion lists with a gazillion interpretations; ascribing emotions and intentions to a bundle of imaginary brightly colored amputated plant ovaries and expecting it to  _ mean _ anything is asinine.”

Petunias.

Flowers.

_ Thinking of you. _

Pink, with striking purple-black veins running into a dark center.

The card is still on your desk, tucked behind your computer monitor after you caught yourself staring at it too many times. Out of sight and out of mind; compartmentalized and neatly filed away until having Roxanne right in front of you reached claw-like hands through the foggy mess and dragged it back out.

Something must show in your face--fuck if you know, you blanked for a second--because the momentary annoyance of an hypothesis proven incorrect morphs back into satisfaction.

“Perhaps it  _ is  _ just a flower, but I don’t think you understand how rare negative flower meanings on greeting cards are; polite society as a whole frowns upon pre-printing such passive aggressive sentiments. I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss any meaning, implied or otherwise, considering the effort  _ necessary  _ for such a specific card to be sent at all.”

In for four. 

Hold.

As you exhale, words tumble out with the hiss of rushing CO2 molecules to join the soup of gases in the atmosphere, “ _ Why. Me?” _

“Revenge, of course,” She holds the phone out for a last time, already open to the contact labeled ‘Mother,’ with the cursor preemptively selecting the  _ Call Now  _ button, “for a promise broken. As you said, you are the last person she wants to hear from right now, but she will listen to you, whereas she clearly does not listen to me or we wouldn’t even be in this situation.”

You didn’t expect such a frank answer. You admire that.

This time, you actually take the phone from her.

“I have no intention of antagonizing your mother, even if you’re in on it.” You feel old, watching her settle back on her small heels in satisfaction. She’s won--you know it, and she knows it. It would sting, if only you felt anything more than tired. “I’m going to find out where she is. That’s all.”

“But, that’s exactly what I want, Mr. Strider,” A hair too innocent. Voice pitched higher than it should be. As the carefully constructed mask of benevolence settles over that young face, you wonder what you’d find locked inside her mind, if only you’d dig deep enough.

“I’m not particularly thrilled to have to deal with my mother while intoxicated, but I’d be shirking my daughterly duties if I didn’t make my concerns known to an  _ old friend _ who clearly has her welfare similarly in mind.”

You don’t appreciate being  _ bullied  _ into things, but…

Rose is a Seer. Even without powers, that indicates a certain measure of foresight and observational and analytical skills you can’t just dismiss despite her age. You aren’t so proud that you’d ignore the girl who’d become your Bro’s tactician, when she’s clearly so dead set on a particular course of action. 

Weathered steel and sharp edges, that is who you are, and yet you find yourself fucking bending in the wake of these kids who don’t even know they are broken. A far cry from the people they will, and had once become.

There isn’t even a ‘supposed to be’, for them. They just  _ are. _

There’s a peace in that ignorance, you think. Perhaps you even envy it a little.

Satisfied that you will in fact do her bidding, Rose excuses herself back into the living room to a duo of interrogative voices, too close and too loud, rising over the absent video game sounds. You wouldn’t put it past the boys to be lurking on the edge of the living room, listening through the mostly open door.

You look down at the active phone, shove that thing into your sylladex, and leave.

Not out through the door to responsibility, the swinging gates leading to the living room where you can still hear the children squabbling. No, out the other way. Out the back. Through the door to the small laundry cubby, and then the back-yard.

Or, that’s where you’re headed, but don’t quite make it in one fell stalk because the water has long since stopped running. A hand doesn’t catch your arm, but a cleared throat makes you slow as you pass. 

You have no illusions that Dan hadn’t overheard the whole thing. That he doesn’t know what you’re about to do. That he approves. Even as you’re looking for it, you don’t see a shred of judgement on the man’s face. Just neutral resignation. Stoic, in his noncommittal.

But you don’t get anything from this Dadliest of Dads. No commentary. No advice. Just a simple, “I see you’ve decided. Let me know if you need anything.”

You aren’t sure if you  _ wanted  _ him to say anything. Perhaps it is best to let it be.

The door closes behind you, shutting off the light from the kitchen and leaving you trapped in the chilly air of the laundry room. Maybe here is good enough, and you don’t need to go all the way out. There’s a door, at least. A door and a wall and a whole ‘nother room between you and the children and Dan.

A  _ beat, _ and the silver captchalogued phone is in your hands. It hasn’t been long enough for it to go back to sleep, the pre-selected contact staring up in your face. That  _ beat  _ turns into two and then it rings as you press it up against your ear, leaning your back against the white metal casing of the washing machine, the only light in this dim larger-than-a-closet-but-not-by-much sized space coming through the curtained window on the door leading out to the back yard.

It rings.

And it rings.

And then it clicks.

_ “Rooooosieeeee--I can’t belieb--is evry thin ok didja get my txtss?” _

“It’s me, Roxanne.”

The line goes dead silent. So silent that you think that Rose was wrong. That Roxanne heard your voice and immediately smashed that end call button in the face. But no, with the increasing silence, the phone’s sound sensitivity spikes, coaxing out voices and laughter and unintelligible noise that must be the equivalent of ambient music in the background.

A breath escapes that you hadn’t realized you were holding, “Where are you?”

She waits so long you wonder if she’s going to respond at all. “ _ Liek ‘m g’nna tell  _ u _ you you you  _ jerk!  _ you tell me why u hve rosie’s phone in the furst place buster!” _

Something in your chest eases because she’s  _ here. _ She answered. And yeah, she’s all hells of drunk, to use her own phrasing, but she  _ answered. _

You crowd against the washing machine, closing your eyes, plastic device pressed up against your ear. You can’t see her. If you can’t see her, you can translate sounds into pink text, and not the angry words that freeze the air in your lungs. 

You know how to handle a drunk Roxy.

“She gave it to me. How do you expect to get home? Christ, I wouldn’t trust you with a fenestrated plane right now and that’s your aspect--”

“ _ Aw no u don’t strider! I could totes drive a fenestrated window if i wnted to and had my gear--’im the best at fenestrated windows my fenestrated window network is airtight ok. I will not stand for thss slandr ok.” _

Interesting that she latched on to that--don’t think about it Strider. Take a leaf out of your Bro’s book and just roll with it.

“Roxy, listen, I’m sure you have the best and most locked down kickass network in all of ever, but unless you can access it to get back here then we  _ still _ need to know where you are. ” 

“ _ Dont u rosy me dick. ‘M not tellin’ u nufin. I’m on to u, you kno that?” _

Oh christ here she goes. 

_ “After all that talk’n about leavin’ and gettin’ outta my hair an’ now u wanna show up on yer pones to rescue me all prince charmin’ like ‘cause i fell off my own damn horse. If ur expectin’ for me to all up and do the swoons into yer waitin’ arms as we gallop into the sunset well just keep waitin’ cuz it aint happn’n.” _

Talking is good. Rambling is better. This is better. It has to be better. It’s more familiar to you, at least, even as she’s taking stabs at you that prod at the still fresh wounds from earlier. Roxy didn’t get  _ angry _ often, because she just talked around it until it was out and you could lay all the cards on the table. 

But can you trust that? This  _ isn’t Roxy. _

It was the cold, frozen anger that strangled you, because it made you realize you don’t know Roxanne Lalonde at all.

_ “Plot twist u ain’t no prince and i ain’t no damsel you gotta rescue from the boozeym’nster. No swooning going on. No big ol’ white horse with a billowing pink mane to gallop me home to my one twu pain in the ass i can nevah get rid of even when yer across the dam country cuz oh look yer somehow inside my head and i can’t even dream without u buttin’ your shitty face and terrified eyes and the blood and oh god the blood *grrck*” _

“Rox?” The sound of stuff clattering. Voices, suddenly rising. She sounds so far away, and your heart is lodged in your throat like it’s a literal frog blocking off your airways and you struggle to breathe. “Ro-Lal?  _ Roxy???” _ Your voice is rising in response to the distant sounds and retching. Heart hammering in your chest, just under a nonexistent scar. “Rox--I swear if you aren’t okay I’ll--”

_ “It’s roxanne u asshole,” _ Her voice is wavering, tired, but she  _ still _ doesn’t hang up on you, even as you can tell she moves the phone away from her ear, listening to her apologizing to someone on the other end. Telling them she’s fine. Really. Could she get another--no? Is there someone they could call--

“Give them Dan’s number, Rox.  _ Please.”   _ You might as well be fuckin’ pleading right now, not that you know if she hears you or not. 

She doesn’t respond. The line holds. Tinny sounds of movement and voices all muffled, as if the device was shoved into fabric confines. Purse. Pocket. Fuck if you know. Her lab-coat-dress had pockets.

It’s a long eternity until you hear from her again, voice ringing with the reverb of a small enclosed space. Running water. Did she hole herself up in a bathroom?

_ “Why tee eff does it matter so much, dietrsh.”  _ She’s even mangling the syllables of that stupid name.  _ “Thish isn’t liek when we were kids when we had a curfew and u needed to get ridda the evidence and stuff me in some closet till i sober’d up. I’ma big gurl sshienctist now. I can get drink as mush as i want as long as i got the dosh and i aint afraid to flash th’ cash. Stupid idiots get these hands and these hands are strong enough to smash folks in the face if they get uppity. Just like--” _

Her breath hitches.  “ _ It can’t be real dirk. It can’t. I don’t--u suck and i hate you but I dont hate u that much I swear.” _

“I’m sorry. But it was. Real. And it hurt like a bitch.” You try your damndest to make that line soft, with a tinge of joking exaggeration in the end. Gentle. An olive branch. A white flag requesting parlay. Whatever fuckin’ metaphor your brain wants to dredge out of its foggy depths. You probably don’t succeed, but you try anyway, “I don’t blame you--”  _ Liar.  _ You flinched at the sight of her reaching for you.  _ “ _ I was trespassin’ and why the fuck would you think it was anything but a dream?” 

Liar, liar, liar.

Dying to that blade broke something in you, and this time you’re pretty sure it won’t heal.

“ _Becuz it had to be_ _a dream! Harley said nuthin’ ‘bout sword summoning, dreamwalkin’ bullsssshit--not for us, Dirk. Just a stupid friggin’ dream. Like when we were kids. All I wanted was to make it go_ ** _away_** , _just up and pop it like a bubble but bubbles don’t_ **_bleed_** _.”_

“Rox, Harley was  _ wrong _ . It’s all  _ wrong _ . I don’t kno--” you bite it off, dancing around past knowledge you should know and don’t and you just wanna strangle the fabric of your shirt with your free hand.

“ _ Bah, ofc its wrong. It’s always wrong and u’ve always got the anssswers doncha? What if I don’t wanna talk ‘bout it. What if I just wanna sit here an’ drink away the mem’ry of yer goddamn blood splatterin’ all over my face.” _

It hits you. A letter. Dredged up. A confession of sorts from yourself. “I was wrong too, okay? It ain’t just the kids. Not anymore--things changed.” 

_ “I don wanna care ‘nymore dietchrk. Errythin’s gone to shit since th’ summer. Schtuff that made sense don’t ‘nymore. And its stupid and prolly all ur fault somehow. I hadnt had to think about u for twelve years i was OVER. Over it. An’ Over YOU and I just--” _

“Roxy…” You don’t know what to say.

_ “Shhhtahp. Shtap sayin’ my name, especially not all tender and lost liek. U don’t give a shit. U can’t give a shit.” _

_ “ _ I  _ want _ to give a shit, though,” and fuck this is giving you deja vu, just.  _ Use _ your  _ words. _

You build the orange lettering in your mind like a brick wall, ignoring the urge to click your jaw shut as the other end of the line crackles with a sharp inhalation. Air sucking through clenched teeth.

“Time changes things, Rox,  _ I  _ want to change things.”

_ “U stopped botherin’ ages ago, r’member. Usel’ss to u as a drunken mess wasn’t it? Wouldn’t amount to anyfin. A liability.” _

_ “ _ You proved me fuckin’ wrong didn’t you? Just  _ look _ at you. Big shot scientist, with honors from the literal  _ top _ biotech school in the fuckin’  _ world _ , and spearheading the efforts to save that same universe from total armageddon. Only an  _ idiot _ with his head too far up his own ass would ever even  _ think _ \--” 

Fuck. No this isn’t right. The fingers of your free hand are digging into your hair, pulling, tugging, the pain blossoming in your scalp. It’s just words. They aren’t  _ your _ words. You’re an idiot.  _ He _ was an idiot. Empty words, delivered on reflex. It wouldn’t solve anything. You are not the least bit surprised when she just scoffs at your clumsy attempts at taking the reins.

“ _ Well ain’t that a sound for sore ears, too bad its too many years too late and worthless besides. Yea, look at me, livin’ the life. A mansion full o’ wizards and Rosie and a license to make all the mutant cats I want, and drink all I want and its fine. Its all fine and dandy and candy even if it turns out I’m the only one left to captain this baboat into the end-times only the boatmap I got is useless cuz your corpse just up and bled out all over it. All the models are off, the coding work is in shambles and we’ll be lucky if the software division can even finish the GAME in time now that it’s gotta be rebuilt for a whole ‘nother set of universal instance variables and--” _

Her breathing hitched.  _ Wait a minute.  _

“ _ Another set _ ??? Roxy--”

“ _ Jeebus, I’m gonna hurl--” _

The line goes dead, a dial tone the only answer to your promptings. You try and call back, but there’s nothing. Just  _ ring. _

_ Ring. _

_ Ring. _

And then straight to voicemail.

You sit there on the laundry room floor. You aren’t sure when you got there; some point during the conversation.

You try calling again.

And again.

Fuck you screwed this up--

You don't know how long it’s been, trying to call over and over, when the door to your right opens and light burns at your eyes, having long since adjusted to the far dimmer room.

It burns behind Dan like some fuckin’ aura. “Are you alright in here, Dirk?”

You don’t answer. He waits for one anyway; before eventually sighing and moving on without you. “I received a text from Roxanne a couple minutes ago. I’m going to go pick her up from the bar near the University, so you’ll need to watch the children while I’m gone. Are you--”

“Fine.” God, at least something went  _ right _ . “I’ll be fine, watching them.” 

You force yourself to move. To stand. You can’t let yourself go, remember? 

But Dan doesn’t immediately evacuate the doorway to allow you out after you've picked yourself up off the floor. He lingers. A shadow against the light. “You shouldn’t have been the one to do this.”

The muscles in your jaw tightens. You can feel it tugging and pulling at your throat, ramping up the pressure as blood pounds in your ears. “Rose thought otherwise.”

And she was right. It was your responsibility. And…

You have fragments. More than you previously did, even if you feel utterly  _ awful _ about it. But the cold, cruel, pragmatic part of yourself ignores the acidic shame and guilt and merely gathers the results up carefully, satisfied that you’ve pried out some clues to nebulous history.

You’re trying to ignore that part right now.

“Rose is a child.” Dark eyes glitter despite the shadows cast by that hat brim. “That isn’t to say a child’s always wrong, but a parent must remember how limited their perspectives are. Pushing Roxanne could have ended poorly, and then where would we be? Alcohol can be  _ dangerous. _ ”

“I owed it to her to at least  _ try. _ ” 

Who is ‘her’? Rose? Roxanne?  _ Roxy? _

All of the above?

“Even if she would have preferred you had not?”

“...I couldn’t do  _ nothing _ .” It comes out hissed. Pressure full to bursting--your frustration at yourself, at Roxanne, at your whole misplaced presence in this small laundry room in the back of this suburban home in Washington. “That’s why I wanted to leave before--”

Before she got here. Before you came face to face with the ghost of your friend, and before you were presented with a problem and the means to  _ do _ something, and lacking the willpower to actually say  _ no _ \--

It’s easy to stay away when you have no way to contact someone beyond a PO Box address. 

It’s impossible to do so when you  _ know _ they are in distress and there’s a chance you can do something about it. You’ve ruined things for less.

“You still love her.”

It isn’t a question. You flinch. Just a little. But you know he noticed. He had to. You look away.

“It’s not like that.” You can feel the heat traveling up the back of your neck, thinking back to Dave’s implication just hours earlier. An implication that apparently everyone in this house had thought of, except you. Because  _ why _ would you think of it? She’s  _ Roxy.  _ And you’re--

There’s a humming noise. As if he can’t quite decide whether to believe you or not. 

“We were--childhood friends. I--”  _ Thish isn’t liek when we were kids “ _ I had to look out for her. Having Rose confirm my suspicions so bluntly, I..” Trailing off--burning with the need to make him understand but unable to find the words. 

You curl in on yourself, instinctively defensive as you grapple with too many unknowns and complicated feelings tangling themselves up and preventing anything even remotely resembling sincere from passing your lips.

Something must have slipped past your frozen expression, because after another moment more Dan lets it go. “I’m sorry; perhaps I’m the one disregarding another perspective, and that is not fair to you. We’re both adults here. I held my tongue, respecting your decision when you made it. Dressing you down and treating you like a child after the fact is unwarranted. You shouldn’t need to justify yourself to me.”

Except you  _ are _ lost and floundering, not an adult yet at all, and the last person you trust is yourself. You fuckin’  _ crave _ that validation so much it’s almost scary. You’ve been cast adrift in this world for five long months and there’s  _ finally  _ someone you can look to as an authority on all things Parental and…

Christ, this isn’t fair is it? Not to him, not to the memory of your long dead Bro, and not to you either. Not even to fuckin’ Newt who quietly tried so hard to make sure you were at least passable at functioning _ ,  _ although he was probably way too complicit with your splinterself’s bullshit to be a proper role model.

You don’t even know if actually being an adult  _ would _ manage to smother the burning need to explain. To justify your reasoning. To him. To Rose. To--

Your auto-responder would have accused you of wanting to listen to yourself talk. Waxing on and on, dropping orange text into chat boxes in needy floods. That it’s slowly translating into verbal speech patterns should be a good thing. Maybe you’ll be able to hold a half-decent conversation one day, as long as people don’t cotton on and tell you to shut up. 

For now, you’ve hit your allotment of heart-to-heart in verbal form. Your emotions are wrung out and have been tossed into the washer-dryer you’ve been leaning against. Round and round, tumbling, better clean out the lint-catcher soon or you wouldn’t be surprised if the full thing doesn’t just catch on fire _. _

Dan finally steps aside, and you escape the small, dark room. Intent focusing on divesting yourself of Rose’s phone before you do something stupid like check the contact for Roxanne’s phone number.

You hand it over as Dan explains the change of plans to the children. It’s like looking into a pint-sized mirror, the prim and stiff ‘thank you’ hiding the exact same measure of relief and apprehension that has its own chokehold on your soul.

You’re glad Roxy won’t just be  _ out there, _ somewhere. That she’d be, maybe not home, but safe.

But fuck, you aren’t looking forward to it.

The atmosphere is cold and uncomfortable as you settle yourself on the couch and… hell if you know, try to read Dan’s newspaper or something. He’d left it there this morning. It’s cute. There’s even a half-finished crossword in the game section, and you itch to fill in the number squares. You can’t even curl up by the fire because Dan turned that shit down before he left, rolling away in a distant rumble of engines and wheels.

You find yourself anxiously watching the clock as the kids try their best to ignore you, swapping out the previous game for something else, the cheerful music track devouring the awkward silence. Something much brighter and more playful than any of your previously preferred games ever were, although you recognize several of the characters from when you would flip through the collection your Bro left behind. 

You aren’t particularly surprised when the kids decide to bail.

#  Dave > Ditch Your Minder

You watch as Bro meanders into the kitchen at John’s oh-so-innocent request for more cookies, milk, and a list of other things you know will send your brother hunting through unfamiliar cupboards.

You turn to your co-conspirators - John is already on his feet, scrabbling for the remote to nudge the volume up a level to comfortably cover your words and noise of subsequent preparations as y'all take advantage of your schemery in motion. Rose is pulling her coat and gloves out of her sylladex. You, on the other hand...

“You guys know he knows, right?” Your eyes narrow behind your shades, following John as he pulls this epic sneak across the room, using the couch like cover from the lit kitchen, heading towards the stairs. The target is a hallway closet or something, but this plan looks all hells of ridiculous from the outside. “Bro’s got like some sort of sixth sense when it comes to sneaky children. It’s kinda creepy actually.”

“Of course he knows, Dave. It’s not as if we were being subtle; we planned the entire excursion right under his nose.” Rose is getting all bundled up in a way that has you overheating on principle, damn. You remember the you of, like, two days ago, looking over your packed backpack and thinking, yeah, this slightly thicker than usual sweater’s fine. The you of today wholeheartedly disagrees with that statement, and is not really looking forward to this excursion, even if it means you can get the hell out of here for an hour or whatever.

Shit’s cold in Washington. It owes you some fuckin’  _ snow _ if it’s gonna be this cold.

Rose finishes wrapping herself in a slightly shiny… you wanna say subtly glittery? Purple package, and gives you a Look. You give her one back. All hells of communication going on behind them smolderin’ stares that you're not gonna bother to translate. Not that you can’t. You totally could.

Maybe Rose can’t translate it either, because she only sighs at you. Which is a little insulting. You’re totally fluent in pointed Looks. “If you noticed, he’s not exactly stopping us either.”

“Yeah well, he’s the kinda guy to let you cut yourself on the shuriken if you’re stupid enough to step on it. You can do it, but it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea.” Or, well, he  _ was _ . Pressure burns around your wrist. A memory of a strong, unyielding grip. If he won’t even let you walk more than an arms length away in a public space then why the hell isn’t he stopping this hairbrained scheme of ‘get the hell outta dodge’? 

Oh, look--another  _ look.  _ Complete with an arched eyebrow. Rose’s dark, almost indigo eyes bore into you. “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet now?”

“Cold feet? Me? Hell naw Rose these tootsies are so toastie they'll probably set my shoes on fire. I'm all for abandoning the iceberg in order to avoid the incoming cruise liner.” Honestly, the idea of ditching Bro is appealing. Especially with Rose’s Mom on the way home. Throwing those two together, and probably smashed, is one big ol’ unknown unstable variable you aren’t quite sure you want to poke, but like…

It just.

Doesn’t make sense.

“I'm just saying,” you continue, because seriously, you  _ aren’t _ backing out now, “there isn't a point to be all sneaky and the like. This isn’t some big heist, and it’ll only make shit more obvious. You can't be sneaky around a fuckin' ninja, it's their job to notice sneaky shit."

"You keep saying that Dave, but your Bro totally doesn't stand up to the hype. Maybe less ninja samurai and more awkward dork." John's voice is your only warning before something blue and puffy smacks you in the face. You allow your arms to cartwheel, clawing for the projectile that is now cupping your head in an intimate embrace. “Like, seriously, I’ve never seen someone get so thoroughly indoctrinated before. Just wait till you see him wandering around in a Betty Crocker branded apron. I’m sure I saw Dad with one the other day.”

After divesting yourself of the unwanted molestation you drag the jacket off your face and boggle at your assailant. “You dad wears  _ what???” _

“An apron likely would not be amiss to prevent unnecessary trips to the dry cleaners. It is a smart move, honestly.” Rose, the traitor, doesn’t seem to share in your disbelief. And granted,  _ maybe _ the apron in question isn’t actually, like, all frilly and girly, but that's what comes immediately to mind. That and pink for some reason, although that’s less unlikely; you’ve already seen Bro wearing more and more of the stuff as he keeps making those puppet felt shirts. 

John laughs at you, and starts shoving his stinky feet into equally stinky shoes. You sullenly slip your arms through the sleeves of the old jacket and go through the motions, letting your friends drag your totally not reluctant self towards the door with little more than a backwards glance at the lit kitchen. 

You keep expecting to see his silhouette blocking the light--there's no way Bro isn't aware of your shenanigans--no way he'd be meticulously distracted enough with those cookies to keep him gone this long.

Maybe he really doesn't care. It's not like you’ve seen him much at all since your were stuffed side by side in an airborne tin can for hours on end. He’s always hiding away in the kitchen with John’s dad. Except for meals, you guess, but that doesn’t really count.

He doesn’t even show up when the front door opens. Winter blasts you square in the face with the  _ freezing cold _ evening air, gnawing at your nose and cheeks to the point where you swear the wind has little needle teeth. Luckily, despite the fact that John is slightly shorter than you, the jacket is apparently designed to be a shelter, so you turtle the fuck outta that shit and try your best to burrow your nose into the insulated collar. 

As John somehow pulls a spare key from middair to lock the door behind you, Rose seems to notice your distress. Her solution is swift; rearranging and then tugging a length of fabric from the leaves of her sylladex, wrapping it neatly around the lower half of your face. It’s white, matching her earmuffs, which would probably compliment the lavender of her jacket, and probably hella girly but you don’t care because it’s  _ warm  _ and it’s keeping the little wind sprites from biting off your nose.

You aren't made for this shit. 

“Is the baby all nice and tucked in now?” She can’t appreciate your glare through your shades. 

“He better be because we are getting this show on the  _ road! _ ” With that, and a flash of John's finest pearly whites, he hops off the small upraised step you remember all but vaulting over yesterday in your mad dash to the finish line--God was that only yesterday???--and begins to lead your small procession down the sidewalk at a brisk pace. You remain frozen for a moment, taking in the dark as sin night--like srsly your internal clock says 7:26 pm but it looks closer to midnight for the amount of sun out now, aka none whatsoever. There’s supposedly a moon, but peeping over the edges of your shades and up into the sky revealing it’s covered in clouds, allowing the night to open up to some blank void dotted with yellow will-o-wisps. Windows of houses and street lamps, just like what you see from your window at home, only there's pockets of darkness between the lights, and an aura of stillness you don't think Houston could ever manage.

You aren't scared. Really, you aren't. You've definitely faced worse. But you always thought your first adventure would be more like your trip with Bro, light and noise and heat. Not this biting cold. 

It makes you think of snow. And frogs. And… 

_ Dying _ . 

The year  _ is _ dying, you guess. 

The shiver up your spine is just the wind. As is the shadow of a thought that follows you away from the lit porch. The bare-branched tree creaks in an excited breeze. And isn’t that weird, thinking of a breeze as excitable?

Your breath comes out in a muffled  _ huff, _ moisture tangling up in the fiber of Rose’s scarf and warming your nose, as you catch up with your friends. They've begun their meandering walk down the sidewalk on the edge of the empty, dark road. You pass under a cone of yellow light, the only sound being the distant buzzing of the electronics powering the machine above your head. 

They are ghosts that pass by, these lights. These lives. The night air has a purity of silence you are loathe to shatter.

“Sooooo…” John apparently has no such qualms. “Wow, if I’d known it’d been so easy to shut you up, we woulda gone for a walk ages ago.”

“It’s flippin’ cold, Egbert, cut me some slack.” You want to flick his glasses, but that would require pulling your hands out of the pockets and nope, not happening. He’s not worth it. “So cold in fact I’m debating the validity of this adventure. I  _ know _ I was all ‘slushies 4 president’ earlier, but I don’t think I had the proper frame of reference required to know exactly how insane that stance was. I demand a recount.”

“Poor little desert flower,” Rose teases you gently. You make another stink face at her, but it’s probably too dark for her to be able to tell. “It’s the journey we’re here for, not the destination.”

“Yeah sure, I can totally feel the friendship vibes from here, warming the desolate cockles of my heart. A regular space heater. There’s so much friendship radiating out of this little trio to make it match a Houstontonian summer. Any more, and we could totally bottle this shit and melt the whole fuckin’ ice caps; actually see if it’d make that damn mountain an island.”

Rose gives you a funny look. “You mean the volcano?”  

“No way in hell that thing’s a volcano. It’s too green.”

“Actually, at least five of the Cascade Mountain range are still considered active volcanoes.”

“Shit, really? Did you devour an almanac or somethin’?”

“It’s called research, Dave. I had to do  _ something _ other than listen to my mother going on about abnormal meteorological patterns during that flight.”

Despite the fact that you just won’t let it go, you really are feelin’ the love right now. Getting out of the house feels like the hand slowly working to turn your lungs into pancakes is loosening. Just a little bit.

You let your friends drag you through the bizarrely calm and empty suburb--again, city boy--moving in and out of light halos. That itching feeling between your shoulder blades never goes away, but that’s at least a familiar anxiety, and almost comforting in its presence. 

John’s loud and constant reassurances that he’s made this trek loads of times with his dad ends up panning out, which is a good thing because you really can’t see like more than a foot in front of your face unless you’re bathing like a fuckin’ angel in a corona of a particularly intense street lamp. And yeah, maybe you should ditch the shades in the dark of the night,  _ John, _ but you aren’t at  _ home _ so there’s no way in hell you’re takin’ these puppies off your face.

At least the corner store near the neighborhood community center is exactly where John said it would be, and brightly lit to boot. It has a small parking lot between it and the small not-quite-wide-enough-to-really-be-a-two-lane road that would eventually lead out of the tree studded land of similarly faced houses.

‘Well lit’ means you can actually see shit through your lenses, though it isn’t until you’ve actually pushed open the glass door that rings a little bell somewhere in the back that you’re fully comfortable with your ability to keep an eye on your surroundings. You probably look like a right stupid kid to the bored dude behind the counter--yeah, you see that raised eyebrow. See it vanish into his hairline. Okay maybe part of that was just three unaccompanied minors waltzing into his store, chattering carelessly like y'all own the place. Probably wondered if you have money or if he’ll need to keep an eye on the candy bars in case of sticky fingers.

Anyway--the slushie machine is along the back wall, past a few rows of shelves, so that’s where John leads the rest of you tourists. You’re still lukewarm on the idea of a slushie in the gotta-be-below-freezing temperatures you’ll need to walk back through, but John’s insistent, doesn't want you to miss the ~*experience*~.

Seriously, how did you even agree to this idea in the first place. Could you get some pipin’ hot cider instead?

“Cider is fermented, Dave.” Rose. 

“Look dawg, all I know is it’s apple. And you know, hot.” 

“They don’t even sell that stuff here anyway!” John handwaves.

Man he’s really invested in your ingestion of this goddamn frozen drink. You decide to poke the bear a bit more. For the hell of it. “Well then what about some good ol’ hot chocolate?”

Rose peers at a menu displayed behind the checkout counter. “They do have coffee, if you really must have a hot beverage.”

John ain’t having it. “NO! No coffee. No hot chocolate. We came here because you’ve never had a slushie before! You can’t leave without at least  _ trying _ one!”

You’re eyeballing the swirling machines with their myriad of flavors. Rose is already grabbing her cup. She begins to head for a pale-white, marked with a bitchin’ pineapple and  _ coconut _ for pete’s sake--but she hesitates, veering off instead for some boring dark brown shit that’s labled with a fuckin’ coca cola brand logo. Like, is she for real right now? All those bright, fancy ass colors, and she’s getting some dull boring  _ cola? _ It’s a waste, that’s what it is.

The bell rings again. A bit closer now, since you’re also technically in the back of the store. You decide to stop judging Rose’s tastes, and finally acknowledge John’s insistence that you freeze your hands off again. Not to mention your  _ insides _ . Your gut is probably the only part of you that’s still a cool 98 something degrees like it should be, and he wants you to change that?`

“Dude, I’m pretty sure there’s a 7/11 within walkin’ distance of home. Where it  _ isn’t _ below freezing. I can take a rain check on it. Isn’t that the OG shit?? Honest to frog Slurpees, not this knock-off off-brand stuff??”

You see him gearing up for a response, but then blinks, mouthing the word “...frog?” back at you. You rewind your words and huh, you did say that didn’t you? All you can do is shrug. 

“Well--whatever! This brand’s MUCH better than a Slurpee!”

In the end you capitulate, filling up a small cup with something marked Fruit Punch. God the paper thin skin on your hands is already writhing in protest at the chill radiating from the foamy plastic. You swaddle that shit with napkins and eye Rose’s purple mittens with envy. The crushed ice sitting in your cup isn’t quite as bright as the cherry but, well, you don’t really feel up for cherry. Watching that bright, eye catching candy red swirl round and round and round tugs at something in your chest. It’s just--too weirdly specific. Although strawberry kiwi is intriguing. You’ve never had kiwi before.

Mount St. John appeased, he gets his own drink of choice--blue raspberry, with a layer of the white stuff Rose had been going for--and all three of you head to the register.

Score. You’re at the halfway point, and you’ve only been out for 32 minutes. The timer pulls itself out of the morass of ever moving numbers and sounds, and you check it against the estimate Mr. E had given you before leaving earlier. He should probably be texting John soon, asking where the fuck you guys were because he got home and his house was void of kids--

“... oh fuck.”

That was  _ John. _

“What the fuck did you just say???” If you were proud of John for droppin’ some shits before, you’re over the fuckin’ moon right now knowing he had some fucks to give.  They grow up so fast.

You’d be getting weepy, if John didn’t look so much like a deer frozen in the path of an oncoming  _ train. _

“...I forgot to grab my wallet.”

...Well, shit. Maybe your off-hand musing on sticky fingers was on the uh, money.

You and Rose proceed to paw through your sylladexes, but neither of you seem to keep any spare change. Rose lives too remotely to bother, and you’ve only ever been out like, once. Why would _you_ need to buy shit when you could just order it on Amazon and use Bro’s saved credit details?

...not that you would. Without asking.

Point being, John’d spun this whole venture as his  _ treat _ . A birthday present for you both since, conveniently, it ceases being your special day in less than five hours, and becomes your mutual friend’s.

The cashier is eyeing you and your mounting panic, with increasing comprehension and fuck, you really don’t wanna be  _ those _ kids--

Your blood runs cold when the prickle stops being a prickle and straight up grabs you by the scruff of your neck and shakes you down metaphorically.

“I got it, John. Don’t worry about it.”

...you fuckin’  _ knew it.  _

That’s  _ definitely _ Bro rounding the aisle you legit  _ just  _ came from. 

Has he been fuckin’ stalking you this whole time? Like some kind of creepin’ babysitter? Which really isn't all that surprising when you think about it. You were right, weren’t you? There was no way he’d just let y'all get away with it like that. Especially not--

The invisible hand tightens around your chest. It’s a little harder to breathe. All that hard fought freedom, all lies, not that you’d ever really believed it in the first place. 

Bro doesn’t make a fuss of it, although you do find it in yourself to snicker at John’s strangled tumble of words as he finally manages to process the arrival. His carefully cultivated gambit  _ destroyed _ by one freakin’ ninja. It’s karma, that’s what it is. 

The fact that Bro offers John one of those small, rueful smiles, and a muttered, “This way your Dad doesn’t flay us both,” as he passes to take center stage at the counter, doesn’t bother you. Nope. Not at all. 

Of course there’s a self serving reason. He wouldn’t be here just to keep you on a leash. Or, well, maybe; John’s Dad  _ did _ tell him to keep an eye on  _ all  _ of you. Maybe you’re incidental, this once. 

Do you  _ want _ to be incidental? Or does that thought only make you steam more? The heat of your conflicting emotions is probably melting your slushie as you marinate.

Speaking of--

“Bro,” He pauses in handing the cashier the money that he seems to pull out of nowhere. Orange embers flicker as he glances over his shoulder at you. “I notice you seem to be lacking  something. If you’re gonna crash this joint you’ll have to abide by the rules, passed down from the God of all Frogs, the law is that all participants are required to undergo cruel and unusual slushie based torture. John, are you gonna let him get away with this?”

You gesture to his lack of ice-based beverage, and then step back and watch the flicker of confusion in the slight twitch of his eyebrows--no shades to hide behind, Bro--and the thinning of his lips. Meanwhile, John takes far less cues to follow, an open book, flashing from bewilderment to downright  _ glee _ as he pounces.

If you gotta suffer, then you’re gonna pass that misery around like a goddamn hot potato. Sorry, Bro.

You take a satisfying sip from your red plastic straw--Bro paid so it’s okay, you figure--and alright fine  _ John,  _ you were right. It isn’t bad. It’s an explosion of sweet and fruity sugar ice in your mouth, and you take another long sip, pointedly ignoring the smile Rose isn’t bothering to hide. Just because it’s fine now, doesn’t mean it’s not gonna suck once you leave the heated interior of the store. Might as well enjoy it while you can.

To your surprise, Bro only really puts up a token objection, taking one look at John’s determined face and then glancing at your smug one before letting the boy drag him back into the aisles. You already know what Bro’s gonna get; Orange Crush. He _always_ would get Orange Crush. It’s his _thing._ Just like apples are _your_ _thing_ , though honestly you’re starting to suspect you’re just a fruity kinda guy--in the purely food based definition of the term, of course. You can’t even claim an exclusivity deal with red fruits, considering Mr. E’s Pineapple chicken has gone down in history as one of the best fuckin’ things you’ve ever eaten. 

Then again, maybe pineapple’s an exception. It does have the word ‘apple’ in it after all.

Hurricane John spits your Bro back out at the counter eventually, and by then most of your weirdo feelings have settled into some slushie-induced zen. It’s just like, why the fuck did any of it matter? Maybe Bro showing up was one of the best things that could have happened: you rather enjoyed seeing him so windswept and off balance. Not much can stand in the way of your one-man typhoon of a best friend. Not even the previously immovable mountain that is your Bro. 

Even if you aren’t the cause of it, seeing John’s brown face stretching wide in a grin and slightly flushed from a successful campaign makes a coil of warmth twist in your stomach, causing the ice to undergo an immediate matter shift from solid to liquid right there in your gut. You really are a personal heat generator tonight, aren’cha? Maybe Rose had been onto something.

“We missed out on so much.” Rose’s comment is subdued beside you. She’s long since stopped sipping on her slushie, letting it chill in her hands, watching as John shoots you a thumbs up from the counter. One that you return, with just the right touch of disinterested stoicism. It’s the contrast that makes it funny. Bro’s obviously noticed, and while you can’t quite see his face, you can tell he said something because John flashes from some sort of weird stunned bewilderment right into giggles.

Oh look at that, your ears feel like they are burning. You’ll corner John later and drag whatever it was out of him, but for now you force yourself to stop watching them checkout. It’s a feat that turns out to be easier than you expected because Rose seems to be quite lost in metaphorical melancholic fog right now, another comment coming out in a soft spoken sigh. “We could have spent all the years together, rather than worlds apart.”

“Yeah, online friendships’ll do that to ya.” You take an experimental slurp. You’re disappointed in the proportion of syrup to ice and vigorously attempt to stir it up, “The joys of travelin’ in a giant metal turkey for hours only to get a few short days. Totally sucks, doesn’t it?”

“Hmm.” Huh. You expected more than that. You glance surreptitiously at her, thankful for the concealing wall that is your shades. She’s looking a tad too thoughtful. It’s a kind of thoughtful that has alarm bells ringing somewhere in the depths of your already noisy brain. 

“Alright now, what’s the deal with that long face, Rose?”

“Oh? Nothing at all. I merely wish I could enjoy this moment fully without the looming shadow of inevitability threatening to fall down upon us.”

“Dude,” You find yourself at a loss, flailing for words, “If this is about your mom crashing the party, we went over this. It’s cool.”

“It isn’t. It’s about broken promises, and the inevitability of that betrayal.” She sounds...tired. Her indigo-passing-purple eyes find yours despite mirrored glass, holding them tight, and then burying her attention in her boring brown sludge of a half-melted drink. Her second choice. Why? Why not go for the first one? “I’d even say it hurt more because of the hope implied in making it.”

“Is this about the...y’know…” You take another loud slurp on your slushie, a move that has her rolling her eyes at your actions.

“I’d thought that was fairly obvious.”

“Yeah well, you know, I wouldn’t want to presume and all. Touchy subject.” It  _ is _ pretty damn obvious, though. At least to you. Rose didn’t talk about her home-life much, far preferring to pick yours apart during your interactions. But there were moments when you know she’s been awake for far too long, when she’ll tell you about emptying her mother’s alcohol into the sink. And not only to curtail her mother’s habits. “Have you tried ya’know, talking to her about it?”

“Have  _ you _ spoken to your Bro about any of your numerous issues?”

Woah now, that was uncalled for.

Okay, maybe a little called for.

The tiniest of calls.

“I actually envy you the opportunity, you know. At least your brother would listen and give weight to your words. He doesn’t merely see a  _ child _ .”

“Rose. He  _ stalked us _ because he couldn’t stand to have me  _ out of his sight _ .”

“Because we were his  _ responsibility.  _ Did it never occur to you that three children alone on a dark street, minus adult supervision, could have some disastrous consequences in this day and age? He found a way to ensure our safety while still honoring the spirit of the excursion until we needed help. Isn’t that what guardians  _ do?  _ It would have been far simpler to intercept us before we left the house, as you so helpfully pointed out earlier.”

You don’t really have anything to say to that. Nothing constructive anyway. So you switch gears entirely and yank the conversation back where you can actually steer the fuckin’ thing.

“Well, avoiding uncommunicative parentals is why we’re out here, and not home. Mr. E can, like, tuck in your mom all gentlemanly like, Bro is being a thoughtful stalkery ninja and giving us space, and now you won’t have to worry about where she is and actually enjoy your upcoming day of life.”

“Because having her hungover on my birthday is going to make things any better.” That almost sounded bitter. Cold and bitter. Like the wind outside this brightly lit little corner store. The wind with it’s chill, and icicle sharp teeth, and piercing claws. Like the presence looming at the end of the lane, the shadow stalking your footsteps.

She’s right. You know she’s right. He was  _ trying. _ But no matter the intentions, that shit can lay heavy on your shoulders and keep you itching to watch your back for an attack that might never come.

And you hate it. She hates it. She hates that she hates it. And you  _ get _ that.

Rose saw you freezing, and wrapped a scarf around your face to warm you. You can’t do that--it’s full of mouth germs and it’s yours--but you have another idea. You shove your slushie in her free mitted hand and say, “Hold my beer.”

That snaps  _ something _ out of her.“Dave, this isn’t a  _ joke--” _

You don’t let yourself completely think about what you’re doing. Like the scarf, you wrap your now free arms around her shoulders. She’s actually a little taller than you are right now, and you briefly think bitterly of your long-distant growth spurts and how that smarts at your pride, but you don’t let it deter you. You hug her tighter.

“Just what  _ are  _ you doing?”

She isn’t tensing, isn’t pushing you away. This feels almost right, being in this little bubble of space. She’s surprised.

“Warming you up.”

An eyebrow disappears into honey-blonde bangs. “I wasn’t particularly cold, you know.”

_ “Not  _ with the heat! With  _ friendship! _ Can’t you feel it? Gotta chase them blues away with good ol’ fashioned friendship power. Like you said, it’s the fuckin’ journey. And on this journey we’re all just basking in the awesomeness of each other’s company. We’re here, and we’re awesome, and if you wanna keep pushin’ through the melancholic fog that’s totally fine too, but you’ll need to drag along this Dave-shaped security blanket because I’m sure as hell not gonna let you brave that alone, capiche?”

She’s shaking. You panic for a small moment. Was this too much? Too soon? Too mushy? Was this weird ease of presence just in your own head and she doesn’t feel the same? Did you overstep? You frantically try to untangle yourself, while only really succeeding in tasting shoeleather as you attempt to explain yourself.. “Oh god Rose, sorry, like maybe that was a little too fast. I just-- you know--the scarf! It was like you gave me your scarf to keep me warm so I just like, wanted to return the favor only metaphorically because like I can’t actually give you friendship fire and--

Wait, no, she’s laughing. Quietly. 

Okay. You relax.

“You know, once upon a time Dave Strider would have called a hug ‘uncool’ and ‘disgusting.’”

“Yeah. Well. It still is. But desperate times and all that.  _ Cockles, _ Rose! Hearts full of friendship fire! Everyone knows that energy is best transferred through conduction, and hugs make for great positive energy channels.”

“It’s okay. I will take the gesture in the spirit it was intended. Now take back your slushie.”

“But  _ Roooose,” _ you whine, playing up the reluctance for dramatic effect, “It’s coooold. Think of the friendship fire. You don’t wanna dampen it do you? Besides, you have gloves.”

“Gloves which need to be holding my  _ own _ slushie, thank you.”

You do end up taking back the slushie as Bro and John approach where you and Rose have been hanging by the door. You take one look at the fourth-of a cup remaining of ice and syrup, and glance between it and the door to the freezing cold outside and make a split second decision to pop the top off the cup and  _ chug  _ that shit. It burns in freezing way as it goes down, but hey, in a minute it’s gone, and now you won’t have to have your hands out of the warm caverns of your pockets so win-win.

“There! Problem totally solved. Now no one has to hold it.”

The cold lingers on the roof of your mouth, and you taste the undefinable fruit flavor that is fruit punch sticking to your throat, but it’s worth it when you can toss the discarded container in the nearby trashcan and stuff your chilled hands back into the comfort of your jacket.  Who is the genius? The genius is you. 

John’s rolling up at this point, Bro now predictably saddled with the fate you just avoided because of your brilliant idea. The cold still hasn’t gone away. Why isn’t it going away? John’s got this weird look that seems half torn between amazement and dawning horror. 

“ _ Dude-- _ did you  _ seriously _ just--”

Whatever you seriously just did, you miss it entirely on account of someone  _ stabbing _ a damn katana straight through your goddamn  _ brain. _

“God what the  _ fuck--what the fuck--” _

Bro’s flash-grab strikes again and clutches your chin, tilting your head up so he can--fuck if you know this pain is a weird mix of stabbing and aching and you press your eyes shut to whatever the fuck he’s doing and cling to--OW.

_ “--hit your head?” _

Wheezing. Is John fuckin’  _ laughing _ at you? God, you are so gonna revoke his best friend status. Somewhere between the endless wheezing, there’s Rose being quietly amused at your terrible, utterly incorrigible situation. “ _ It’s just brain freeze. He’ll be fine.” _

That is entirely incorrect, you’re  _ dying.  _

You ignore them and cling to the ticking and  _ count.  _ It’s gonna pass. It’s gotta pass. You just need to pass the fucking treasonous seconds until your brain decides to stop with the not-so-friendly  _ well fuck you too _ , it just shoved in your face.

John’s still laughing when you force your eyes open, and you glare at him through the blurry, pounding, aching pain in your head. “ _ Fuck you. And fuck your slushies.” _

“How was I supposed to know you’d break one of the basic rules??? I only left you alone for a few minutes!”

You can’t find any words except an almost guttural growl. 

Bro only sighs and shoves you through the door; he might as well be chucking you outside in your birthday suit for how prepared you are for anything even remotely chilly right now. You become an honest to frog  _ turtle  _ in your borrowed jacket--curling up like a pillbug to nurse the fading ache which is soon replaced with sore and chattering teeth. 

“It wasn’t funny, dude,” you mutter in his direction. Which by ‘his’ you mean is pretty up in the air. A giraffe amongst piglets.

John’s still occasionally giggling as your small gaggle of companions begin to retrace your earlier steps, and Bro was being hella dismissive to your discomfort right now. Turns out putting cold on top of more cold is a terrible idea, and you swear your chattering teeth is echoing through the street, accompanied by painfully mocking sounds of frozen ice  being absent-mindedly slurped through straws.

“I’m sorry Dave you’re just--your reactions are really really funny that’s all.”

“Delightfully overdramatic,” Rose adds, oh so helpfully. 

“Seriously dude, it happens to everyone.” John lags a few steps to where you’re sulking at the back of the pack, and pats your shoulder in some sort of attempt at comfort. 

It’s too late for comfort. You mumble something, you don’t care what at this point, into the traitor’s scarf and huddle deeper into the dark blue fortress that is all that stands between you and the elements.

As you expected, Bro falls further and further behind the three of you as you walk. You don’t ever lose that tell-tale prickle, but it’s back to full on stealth-mode. Much to your amusement, it drives John  _ nuts.  _ There’s only one path. You know John’s thinking it. It almost makes you dredge a smile out of your frozen facial muscles. 

“He can’t be following us. It’s impossible. It’s not  _ that  _ dark out!”

Okay, maybe  _ that _ makes you smile. Not that anyone can see with your face swaddled in soft fabric insulation.

Hm. Maybe there’s something to this whole scarf thing. Between your shades and this scarf, you’re even more of an unreadable, impregnable wall than usual.

“Oh, he is.” You can feel his attention in that little prickle of situational awareness along your spine. In hindsight, you admit you’d kinda known he was there all along, and you’re not sure you want to examine the idea that the knowledge was what led to you not worrying about, like, getting kidnapped or something. Made you feel safe.

Maybe Rose was right: maybe he only wants to give you space. Or maybe it’s too cold for you to waste the energy on being paranoid right now. 

“Witness the full on stealth mode. Ghosting from shadow to shadow, from tree to tree, unfettered by the chains of domesticity of baked goods and society. A lawless land of puppetry and shitty swords. A ninja, born and bred in a jungle of glass and concrete--”

“Okay okay fine, I get it. You were right. Geez.” John gives you a light nudge on the shoulder. “I think I liked you better when your brain was frozen.”

“Just eat your iced torture device, Egbert.”

All the while, the road to John’s house lay before you. Cold and dark and foreboding, for all that it’s lit by a trail of warm yellow lights. You push forward and let your elbow knock against Rose’s, who’d been content to stay mostly silent the entire way back.

“You ready for this?”

“No.” The word escapes shadowed lips with a sigh. “Some part of me hopes she’ll have passed out already. The pragmatic part of me knows that would be far too easy a resolution.”

“Hey, it could happen. Maybe she’s a sleepy drunk. Isn’t that a thing? People gettin’ all hells of tipsy and sleepy and conkin’ out where they stand?”

“It is possible,” There’s an echo of something else there, narrowed eyes seeing something down the path and into the pitch that gets lost in your own vision. 

You phase out of that particular streetlamp’s halo and the world is plunged into black, the sparse details lost in the planes of your shades. 

She says nothing more. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! It's...a hefty one. Next chapter is the end of Dave's birthday and the finale of this interlude-that-really-shouldn't-be-an-interlude. God I'm so excited to get back to single-POV chapters with the start of Act 2, though I don't think the length will go away any time soon ahaha. oTL 
> 
> ...remember back in the beginning when they used to be like 1-2k? *sighs wistfully* Oh well. 
> 
> *waves a tiny flag for the 200k milestone* It's taken nine months to get here. Thank you all for sticking with me, and all the continuing support! It means so much to me <3

**Author's Note:**

> Status: Normal  
> Officially Beta'd by [Hyena](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DSi/pseuds/DSi) at this point.
> 
> Related Artwork:
> 
> Spoilers warning up until Chapter 19:  
> http://katreal-fic.tumblr.com/post/181552749907/if-you-dont-know-what-this-is-you-havent-read-my


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